Hawkes Bay Kingmaker

With a blade made of flame held up to the throat of an older man that bore a striking resemblance to Learion. Lywin Tannister, it was confirmed as Learion called out for his father and was answered promptly by the blind old man.

A glowing wall was in front of us, but a large portion of the group had teleported into the room averting their eyes so that the nymph wouldn’t blind them with her gaze, so they had no idea it was there.

Thankfully one of the many spells to go off in a strangely pregnant moment of time dissipated the wall and I was able to summon the power and wrath of Iomedae and direct it towards Nyrissa.

The area was a simple, small room, barely big enough for the whole group and Nyrissa and her charmed companion, but I stepped up anyway, trying to guide those that couldn’t see through voice alone. It went badly…

Io summoned the blessings of Iomedae again and again, while Khan zapped the woman with a powerful ray that made her scream in pain. Imajica focused on protection primarily for the first few moments of the battle.

Throughout the fight, weirdly, Nyrissa kept narrating her thoughts and actions, and looked both confused and frustrated as she did so…maybe a quirky side effect of the Thousand Breaths crashing in our realm?

She was proving all by impossible to harm with melee weapons. Her magical defences were formidable and it took something special to breach them. Or something of equal magical power.

While those who fought with weapons struggled vainly on, those with magic in their arsenal were proving slightly more effective, and so the Nymph was systematically removing them from the fight as she could.

First, our king.

No.

He’s not a minotaur.

I swear, I heard Imajica laugh as he heard the now very familiar verbal components of that particular spell. It appears he’s started a craze of sorts.

Next, she tried to blanket dispel all our godly protections, but Io kept maintaining most of them.

Lastly, she aimed the same deadly ray at our arch-mage, intent of ending his now blind existence. I threw myself in the path of the spell, and as it hit my chest, I felt the world go dark and cold. A single warm hand reached through the fog of death and rested upon by breast, power thrumming through the palm, healing me of some of those most grievous of wounds.

Amazed at the power of my God once again, I renewed my devotion to her and stepped forth to smite her most foul enemy.

Imajica had a moment of magical genius…and madness. Somehow, he removed ALL magic from the room, except for Briar. While this made a significant difference to us, it almost crippled Nyrissa.

A few lusty blows from Learion, some well placed stabs from Rafe and some pummeling from Oret ended her miserable and tortured existence.

The castle secure, the enemy vanquished, the kingdom safe again, we returned home.

A large patch of land, nearly a mile across was the remaining site of where the final bloom, a massive invasion force, ably held off by our well trained armies, appeared. It’s unclear whether the land would ever be fertile again.

Imajica has retreated from the kingdom somewhat and resides in the very castle Nyrissa called home. It appears that the mage tower in Shrike City occasionally has a visitor, but for all we know, Imajica is nose deep in books, as is his first love. Evindra had also disappeared from Shrike City. It appears that she also turned up in the same Castle of Knives that Imajica now calls home.

And I, Roche Brightheart have had a more than interesting time. my son Io Brightheart has finally announced what the world knew, that he loved Andromeda Niska and they will be married..if he ever finds the courage to ask (although it looks as though Andromeda will probably tire and ask him first at this rate).

Throughout the years, we have uncovered some great dangers. Two of the greatest are the greatsword of Armag the Twice-Born, a minor artifact capable of turning the wielder into Armag himself, born again, and Briar, the bastard sword born of the nymph Nyrissa’s ability to love. A fully fledged, and sentient artifact.

Both of these require destruction, as in the wrong hands, they could both wreak havoc. Many spells, much research and copious amounts of gold will go into finding out how to destroy them utterly (along with the body of Nyrissa, so she may never rise again).

I have commissioned a Holy Avenger Long Sword to be made as my ceremonial blade of office as a replacement.

And I have also realised that Iomedae has a plan for me as well. Ashularae and I have begun a courtship. It has been an experience…suffice to say, it is proving to be the greatest adventure of them all.

With little other concerning us (we can thank our now exploded watery imp friend for telling us where Nyrissa was in a round-about way), we knew there was very little of the castle left unexplored.

A vote was put in and Khan was adamant that we rest so he could recover spells through communing with nature, while an important consideration, our King was voted down and we elected to finish exploring the castle to ensure that when we did rest, we were much less likely to be disturbed.

Oret snuck through into the last rooms after quaffing an invisibility potion. He returned momentarily, explaining that two of the rooms were empty of creatures (one was a library and the other was a ransacked treasury), but the third room was overgrown with flora, and there was some definite movement in there.

Flora being something our King understands very well, he had a look and found that there was in fact three very large carnivorous plants in there. All capable of movement. All capable of swallowing us whole, and all quite instinctive rather than intelligent.

Many plans were hatched, mostly by me. They were all pretty much agreed upon. Iomedae forgive me, but I grew rash as I tried to get the group to decide on a single course of action, and instead of patiently working through everything, I simply kicked in the offending door and used Briar to harm one of the plants.

The fight was violent. Who knew that plants could be so vicious? With little to no magic to aid us, re relied heavily on swords and body parts. This did prove to be enough and the plants were heavily pruned (at root level).

The castle secure (as we could make it) we finally took Khans advice and found somewhere safe to rest. Io prayed to Iomedae for a way to break the medusa’s gaze effect on Imajica and she provided him with all the assistance he needed. Praise Iomedae, we have our somewhat haughty elven arch-mage back, no longer a statue.

The treasury was searched again, just in case something had been missed and indeed, some trinkets were found. But the primary focus was the library, due to Imajica’s insistence. He did, however, find a book that told us exactly what we needed in terms of getting into the other areas that Nyrissa frequented.

It is lucky that we had Khan there to transcribe EXACTLY what was describe in the very book that imajica would not let go, his fingers whitening as his grip grew ever more fierce.

Unfortunately, when we entered into the closest portal room (the very room the vicious plants were in, Khans recollection of the required thought pattern was slightly off. imjica referred back to the book and we successfully teleported through to a vast ocean of swirling grasslands…

That was no bigger than a large room. The grasses were not actually real, other than in the room. Everything else was painted onto the walls in such a clever fashion that we all felt as though we were really there. It was empty though, so we made our way back to the castle.

The next room to try was the throne room. Imajica pictured the required image and LO! we were transported to our destination…

Letter sent by magical bird to the leader of the centaur by Learien Tanaster.

To our faithful allies the Centaur.

I first wish to thank you for your friendship over the past few years. Your great tribe has stood with our budding Nation in its most dire of times with little in return.

You tribe held the defense of town at great cost to your own forces, again with little in return.

And now I ask one more favor of you.

Please deliver the continence of this letter to Ekho Tanaster at Shrike City one week from receiving this letter.
If I am there at the Time of you delivering this I shall to the best of my ability try to see that your tribe is adequately reimbursed for it service to our nation and see that you are noted in our history books and state in our law that the sovereignty of your lands shall never be touched by our nation or any other and if that should happen Elkland shall come to its defense.
Should I not be there Ekho I task you with this honor and our two nations will need to band together once more to face its most dire of threats.

Private letter to Ekho Tanaster:

If you are reading this we have failed and I and the rest of our group have perished.
I wright this at the time of our combat with Narrisa the Nymph. Obviously she was too powerful and all knowledge we have gathered has been lost with us, so I am letting you know what I at least can remember.
She is based in the 1000 Voices region.
In the now restored castle of Knives.
We managed to somehow rip 1000 Breaths into our plane of existence.
We have cleared the keep / castle of knives and found that she is in some pocket dimension with very specific way inside.
there are four objects in the keep with some sort of magic surrounding them.
tree outside, A bed, A shallow well of water near the rear of the keep upstairs and the throne.
I am unsure if we need to do in and order but from what our mage is saying it looks like we can do one at a time.
You can apparently access by one person touching the object and others wishing to go through as well touching them, and thinking of an image.
Hopefully these do not change.
Well = lying in the grass looking up at the sun.
Throne = sitting in the throne with a big crowed in front of you.
Bed = two people having sex in the bed
Tree = TO COME ( possibly a bird trees on gaming table at bobs place)

I’m am unsure what we are going to face in there so I am of little help to let you know what to expect.
My advise is expect anything. The only help I can pass on is If she is a spell caster use what ever protection you can find for that, if she is a warrior do what you can. Maybe a mix.
One thing she can do is make you blind. Take people that can fight without sight.
And take a lot of people.
You will need people that can detect magic.
Take one or two of our army’s if need be.
If we fail again she could take over our lands.

If you are successful and recover our body’s I leave you my Great sword and my Fey Bane Great sword.

To our little one I leave my Teleporting helmet may she use it to get in and out of trouble some day.

To Jubilost Narthropple I leave my mapping supply’s

To Durz I leave my codpiece my it forever protect that witch he holds most dear.

To my brother James Tanaster I leave my Armour may it protect him as it did me.

Top Oleg Leveton I leave all my alcohol as the one who helped us first many years ago.

And finally I impart some words of wisdom from my time on this Plane of existence

( hit your enemy harder and faster than they can you and you shall prevail )

Once I opened my eyes, the fight went much more smoothly. Not for me, you must understand, as I swung Briar to no avail, but I could at least see my valiant companions cutting down these evil fae as though they were stalks of wheat.

Learion kept his eyes down and swung lustily, Rafe, blinded by the fae, but somehow as precise as ever, pierced defence after defence and Oret, nimble Oret, moved through the throng of women like quicksilver and bludgeoned them senseless.

Our casters were more sensible and simply hung back, knowing there was very little they could add, and they only risked being blinded for little reason.

Once the blinded nymphs were dispatched, we searched their room thoroughly. There was a little bit of magic, but only Imajica seemed interested in it, as it was a magical dress of some form. Oret did managed to grab a beautiful dress for his bride to be as well. And a strange collection of tiny musical instruments was also collected, one of which was a magical horn of some description.

There was plenty more searching as we moved from room to room, expanding our search for Nyrissa. It was becoming more obvious that she might not even be here in the castle, which left me confused as to where she might be.

It was at this point that we walked into a good sized room that looked to have been converted into a water clock that size of the room, with a small library around the walls. A blue imp creature was inside, busily fluttering around.

It wasn’t sure we should be there, but between Imajica, Learion and Rafe, the group was able to get it to provide us with some information. But while they were talking, something about this nagged at my subconscious…my dream! This was the creature and room in my dream!

Suddenly, the imp clasped its hand over its mouth and I recognised this immediately and ducked behind my shield. Before I could warn the others, the imp exploded and covered the room and any nearby with the blue watery fluid of its demise.

We did learn that Nyrissa was likely to be in her own pocket dimension of sorts. This could only be reached by touching certain objects in the castle in a certain order. Four objects in particular. The imp expired before we could be told what and where the objects were and what order they needed to be touched. But at least we had more of a clue than moments prior.

More exploration followed and we ended up stairs on the third level. This whole level rundown and walls were crumbling, holes through everything and there was even a flitter of movement.

Learion immediately called out for his father and got a response. He wisely asked a follow up question, but this wasn’t answered, so we assumed the worst. Well, most of us did. Imajica betrayed a lack of patience that we have seen on occasion from him (and somewhat unusual for an elf at that) and he stalked straight through the very door the voice came from…

…and was immediately turned to stone.

Looking around, it was suddenly obvious that many of the stone things around the place were, in fact, statues, and probably were once alive before coming across whatever foul thing was in the room.

Imajica wasn’t the only one to fall foul of the power. Rafe stepped into the room as well and immediately turned to stone as well.

Io provide the statue of Imajica with a semblance of life, animating the stone and directing it to attack what it could see. Khan filled the room with fog to protect the others from seeing her, as I flew over the rubble, looking directly at a snake headed woman, the snakes in place of her hair, waving around, ready to bite.

I felt the love of Iomedae wash over me. Clearly I had been protected from something, likely the very affliction that hampered Imajica. The foul woman disappeared into the fog, but I had spotted her moments before so I was able to follow her easily.

While I had little success killing her, I was able to guide others to her location. Learion stumbled along carefully averting his eyes from the woman, and Rafe practically skipped over the rubble after Io had managed to break the enchantment over him. Oret rushed forward as well and between us, we cornered her.

She was trapped!

And she died. Sword blows landed, fists and knees hammered home and she slumped to the ground, dead within seconds.

Still, she was dead, but we had a statue to try and restore into an elf. How are we supposed to do that? Io explained he only had one spell that could fix the problem and he had cast it on Rafe. The situation looked dire.

Imajica and Khan were able to confirm that he had actually teleported rather than simply going invisible. Since we had no idea where he could have gone, we decided to get our group back in close proximity for any required healing.

While we did that, Imajica decided to check out one of the doors below the bridge we were all currently standing on. Healing done, everybody who could move (which turned out to be everybody since the paralysis had worn off) went downstairs to check out the door with imajica.

Thankfully nobody else was badly hurt with the area of reversed gravity wore off.

Of course, not everybody could simply fly down, so those that couldn’t made their way to the stairs and began their descent. I was carrying Io and about to fly down when the whole area was suddenly covered in a foul smelling mist, causing us to try and flee the area, or risk vomiting uncontrollably. The worm man was invisible and while we reeled back in shock, he moved through to the dining hall.

Or so I was told.

Carrying Io back to the bridge, I moved through the now open door, only to find numerous spells going off. While I couldn’t see the enemy, our casters spells helped at least locate his general position.

Of course, I never got close to him. Io cast a large zone of silence, forcing the enemy mage to retreat, right into the charge range of Rafe, who gleefully stabbed him as quickly as possible after Khan had cast yet another valuable spell on the creature.

Of course, Io finally decided that this combatant was too dangerous to let continue alive, so he cast a spell he has only talked to me about, but has resisted casting due to its awful power. The worm man exploded into wormy dust, his clothes and equipment dropping to the floor, completely unharmed.

I got the distinct impression the others were a little shocked at Io’s power, since all they had really seen prior to this was him healing and magically assisting them.

After clearing up the items (and Imajica gasping in excited glee), we continued on our way through the castle, looking for more of Nyrissa’s goons to cut down to size.

Realising that we had left an enclosed area back in the tower where Oret was unable to break through some vines and climb into a loft of some description.

We also needed rest and replenishment of spells, so that room seemed like a likely place to safely barricade ourselves.

Learion and Oret managed to break through the vines and a number of us stood under the trapdoor eagerly watching to see what Oret would find. Turns out he found something like a dirt dragon. It wasn’t really a dragon, but it was certainly shaped like one.

It vomited a huge amount of dirt over us while Oret was punching, kicking, elbowing and headbutting the thing as fast as he could as he was virtually trapped up there with it. I had stepped back to give the others some room and pleaded with Iomedae to grant me the power to heal my injured comrades. Thankfully she granted me a portion of her power to do so.

The next thing we knew, the dirt started streaming through the tiny opening in a veritable landslide, right over the only one left standing in its way. Rafe. Rafe bravely held up his blade in the hopes of harming the creature as it flowed past him. it appeared in conjunction with whatever else had harmed it in the preceding few seconds was enough to see it slice itself to death on his razor sharp blade.

A long rest later allowed everybody to recuperate a touch and Imajica to study his spell books for some more spells. I, along with Khan and Io, however, had to wait until their respective gods bestowed our daily allotment of spells back upon us.

While resting, I had a strange dream. I dreamed of some strange imp like creature in a room of watery something. It then exploded in a haze of watery essence. I have no idea what that means, but I jerked awake at that point.

Rested as well as we can be, we continued to travel through the castle. We stumbled on a lone fae, her eyes clearly removed from her hear, blood streamed down from her sockets. Rafe, Learion, Oret and even Khan managed to squeeze into the small room with her, cutting her down, but not before she screaming in agonizing fashion and exuded an aura of sickening horror.

Imajica quickly plugged the door behind us with an extremely powerful spell as several more of the same creature (nymphs of some description I’m told). With no way past the door, we had to wait until Imajica could dispel the effect and let us pass. That said, it sounded as though there was a huge amount of magical power being expended outside, so perhaps the portal served a valuable purpose in the meantime.

The door cleared again, I rushed through to try and provide cover for the others, but they screamed again and I shut my eyes in preparation of the worst….blind! I carefully opened my eyes again and everything was blurry. Focusing hard, I was able to blink away the haze and stared directly at the cursed women again, ready to defend my friends.

I come out of my induced non movement state inflicted by the wriggling worm man, ON THECEILING!!!

He had disappeared and I decided to leave the upside down state on my own terms and stepped out of the affected area and quickly descended to the ground with a large thump.

Not long after that Imagica stated he was going to open a door downstairs . Wait I said let me get down there!!

No I cant wait… so he opened the door a few seconds later people come rushing up the stairs saying Worm Man up stairs!!!!

I could not see any worm man but Imajica could so I followed his spells. I ran to where his spell went… as soon as I got there his spells were going to another part of the room…. Fantastic i’m running after a invisible man a great way to increase my cardio!

After running around a bit our swashbuckler put and end to the worm man with a flick of his wrists… Thank God.

We looked around a bit searched some rooms and then we came across a nymph with no eyes she screamed and the fight started.

So we are in the keep and Imagica starts showing an interest in Flora and Fauna so I decide it my be best to stay with him for a bit in case he did something he shouldn’t to the trees. Eventually we return to the room with the pool of water. As we head on in further things look decidedly familiar. These are the halls I say in my vision when I Scried for Poppa Tanister. So the guys decide we should head up stairs to try and clear out as many of the Fey Bitches Minions as possible. The trouble is these halls look exactly the same. A few small empty rooms later we find a couple of Wyverns having a bit of a chat in the dining room. We quickly dispatched them but not before some of us took a bit of damage. We all thought we were in for something cool when we found a secret door. Unfortunately it only lead to servants quarters which were all empty aswell. A bit later we come upon an Angel, he seemed to be saying stuff that didnt make sense and it was as if he didnt really want to say it. Before the confrontation became deadly I cast Greater Dispel Magic and poof he was gone. But then we got attacked by a mage with the worst case of worms I have ever seen. Interestingly he cast anti gravity which caused a bit of an interesting combat. Just when we were getting on top he vanished… To be continued.

We tried to make our way further into the castle, but Imajica and Khan decided a quick look around the courtyard and the trees there was in order first. Knowing that those two had plenty of ways to deal with any situations that might come up, the rest of us waited, some more patiently than others, in the pool room.

They came back with little additional information, so we moved deeper into the castle. Khan immediately recognised these passages as the ones he saw when scrying on Learions fathers. Knowing that this meant we would be lead to the last place we saw Nyrissa, it was suggested that we take a different route to ensure that we had cleared out the castle of any potential help she might have.

Up the stairs it was then.

Khan immediately recognised these corridors as the ones he looked at while scrying for Learions father…hmmm…something of an issue here then, since apparently all these passages are going to look similar.

Some searching around found bedrooms, store rooms and a large, run down, dining room. Which happened to be populated with two large wyverns. Having fought them previously,, I stood in the doorway to allow the rest of the party to get their spells and weapons ready.

Unfortunately, the wyverns were quicker to react than us and bit, raked, and stabbed me with their tail stingers and one of them then grabbed me with its large claws and pulled me closer to its mouth, saliva and halitosis bearing down on me.

At least the other wyvern was quickly dispatched. Realising that its companion was dead, the one that held my, not so tenderly I might add, in its strong claws, let me go and attacked any who came near it. Including Io! He had stepped into the fray to heal me as I looked to be bleeding and in some serious difficulty. He managed that, but suffered a frightful wound of his own and was poisoned for bad measure.

The final wyvern died quickly after that, but it came down to an unlikely source to cure the poison and save my son. Imajica was able to convert his arcane magics into something resembling divine power and removed the poison from Io, much to everybodies relief.

A secret door was found, and a short exploratory trip later revealed nothing of urgent importance, so we made our way over a bridge adjoining this dining hall and the next room. But not before Oret had ventured downstairs to ensure the sounds of battle hadn’t drawn in more opponents. He advised us there was nothing there, other than a sense of him being watched.

We stepped onto the bridge and were stopped in our tracks by an angel! Who claimed to be protecting Nyrissa! Some foul magics were afoot here, and I tried to find a way to talk to the angel and see if it was being held against its will.

Khan took a more direct route. He attempted to dispel any protective magics the angel might have, but instead, it winked from existence. Imajica has been trying to explain to me ever since that this was not actually an angel, but simply a summoned creature and therefore was not acting on the will of the heavens, but I’ve had trouble following the extremely academic explanations, since all I can really understand is that an angel appeared, it was an angel, it acted like an angel, it certainly wasn’t evil…so under the slightly less academic argument…if it looks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, it acts like a duck…surely it’s a duck? Angel? Sigh…too complicated for me. Either way, Khan used the right magic at the right time.

Suddenly spells went off, and we hadn’t cast them. Several members of our party went completely still and the man made of worms was floating off to one side. What followed was a frustrating game of cat and mouse as the enemy went invisible and moved while casting spells. Thankfully, Khan was able to highlight where the creature was and we could now follow it.

The creature reversed the gravity in the area, but that actually worked more to our advantage as those who were stuck on the bridge out of reach were suddenly able to walk on the ceiling and charge at the mage as it was floating within reach. Several strong strikes later and the mage was reeling back in pain, but it’s not finished yet…

What wriggling man?

Standing at the next set of doors waiting for the rest of the party to ready them selves took muck longer that I was expecting. Our mage decided to go on a grad tour of the courtyard inspect every tree and blade of grass before finally coming back and continuing on our path.

We opened the door and found our self in a corridor that our druid said look similar with his vision looked in a few rooms and then decided to go to another floor not in keeping with our normal search pattern but meh!

Up a flight of stairs and a few rooms later we open a door and are greeted by two very large Wyverns lounging on the two dining room tables. They flared up and attacked. The pally took a few blows and then ran on in and got picked up by one of the beasts.

I swung my sword into one of the Wyverns and felt like I hit a vulnerable spot on the evil creature and did some serious damage to the beast. It was finished of seconds later.
The second on was alone and was holding the pally and licking him in spots where even a Wyvern should not dare to lick. It decided to drop the pally as it was being hit from every side by the party. It bit poor Io and then fell to its wounds.

Io was poisoned and was fading fast. Our mage swooped into action and saved him with a well times spell.

We found a secret door and I used my key to get past the lock. more bed rooms and stuff nothing to interesting.

We went to go across a small bridge over the top of the throne room into next part of the upper castle and were greeted by a angelic being telling us that the Nymph was protected by god!!! WHAT!! the Nymph?? we talking about the same thing here???
Suddenly the druid cast a spell the angelic thing dissipated in a puff of smoke and all I can remember now is not being able to move hearing chaos all around me then floating or falling into the ceiling. Lets hope its not permanent!!!

The fight was going badly and we were being forced onto the back foot. At this point, Learion gasped in surprise as he slapped his hand into his full plate armour’s back pocket (yeah, go figure that particular accessory out).

_It was dingle mouse. He had forgotten that he had put him there the day before.
Learion started to cry and told Dingle mouse that the Linnorm is going to eat us all up with peanut butter!. But then suddenly Dingle mouse cried out “I got-a Idea! I know a big strong eagle called Jim. He is my friend and he owes me money!. Ill go try and get him” Then Dingle mouse jumped out of my pocket and ran off to find Jim.

Learion yelled “Please hurry, Hurry the Linnorm is going to eat us soon.”

So Dingle Mouse ran, he ran as fast as he could, he ran so fast his tail caught fire and he had to sit in a bucked of cold water to put it out. piiissshhhhh!!! “That’s better” Dingle Mouse said.

After a few more attacks on the Linoorm and Dingle mouse had reached the Tree where Jim the giant Eagle was asleep.

JIM! JIMWAKE UP!! JIMWAKE UP!!! JIMYABBADABBADOO!!

Dingle mouse looked at Jim and he still was the same old Jim. Jim was a beautiful Eagle, he had brown feathers on his body, white feathers on his head a big yellow break and blue eyes and he was nearly as strong as god!

“HURRY UP JIM! The Linnorm is going to eat the party soon with peanut butter!”

So Jim the Eagle quickly took off his pajamas. Dingle Mouse jumped on Jim’s back and away they flew.

Still fighting the Linnorm Learion yelled out to the others " Can you see anyone coming to save us?"

“No No we can’t” said the party. “Look” Learion said “The Linnorm is about to breath on us again!!”

The Linnorm let out and Evil and very long cackle " I’m going to get you" with another Evilly long cackle.

“Look” I said “in the distance its Jim the eagle, Jim the Eagle is coming!”

The Linnorm was inhaling for its final death breath on the party and then Jim the Eagle flew up to the party and said “quick get on my back, Hurry” the Linnorm was starting to breath out “STOP THEM” screamed the Linnorm “ahhhhaaaa Stop them!”

But the party was on the mighty eagles back and away we flew away from the terrible Linnorm.

The linnorm was so angry it screamed “STINKY POO!!! Stinky Poo Stinky Poo knickers knickers knickers” and then started to chase after the party. It said “I have some magic powder that I’m going to chuck on you and turn you into china-mans legs!”

Jim the eagle flew up and up and he hid inside a cloud and the Linnorm flew around and around, around and around the cloud it flew waiting for Jim and the party to come out.

Just then God came along and when he saw what the wicked Linnorm was going to do to the party he told the Linnorm “GO AWAY!” “NO I WONT, I WONT” said the Linnorm and tried to scrach Gods eyes out. So God pointed his finger at the Linnorm and zap, thump he had made the Linnorm Burst like a balloon and disappear like smoke.

When Jim the Eagle saw that the Linnorm was dead he flew the party back down to the castle entrance. We then said our goodbyes._

That ended possibly the most bizarre event of our already very strange adventuring careers.

We were confronted by some massive portcullis gates. A little gentle ribbing towards Learion saw he not only attempt to lift the gate, but succeed! It’s amazing what some reverse psychology can do…

The sight that greeted us was terrifying and straight from Learion’s nightmare. It was the fabled jabberwocky. Huge, terrifying and moved to attack us as soon we moved further into bailey.

The fight was confusing, dangerous and we had significant trouble harming the beast. However, Briar was determined to see the end of it and seemed to be sneaking through its defences slightly more often than I would normally do on the creature of this magnitude.

Magic rained down in the form of summoned creatures as Imajica and Khan found directly affecting it was supremely difficult. In the end, the mighty beast fell.

The previous two fights had taxed our spellcasters greatly and Io, Khan and Imajica were looking forward to some much needed rest. Unfortunately, the last rest was less than a couple of hours ago and we are in the middle of the enemy castle.

Searching for somewhere that might be suitable, we stumbled across some undead horses in the stables. Not sure what to do about them, Imajica discerned that these were likely summoned creates rather than undead, so we left them alone for the time being.

The last place to look before going into the castle proper turned out to be a pool room, surrounded by thousands of tiny demonic statues, all frowning or crying, with the exception of one smiling statue that a sharp eyed compatriot spotted.

We removed the smiling statue and the room, previously dull, musty, and diseased room suddenly changed into a pristine, sparkling room with beautiful clear pool in the centre.

I had a drink from the pool, and it was both delicious and extremely refreshing. We decided to leave the rest of the water alone in case we needed some extra healing later on.

Thanks Jim

We approached the castle gate and as expected the Green Dragon we spotted the day before rose up and attacked.

I was told It was a linnorm Dragon but with two heads this made very little difference to me as it did not effect how I was going to deal with it.
I hit things as hard as I can when I can reach them and if I can not I fire pointy things at it from afar.
This case it was the latter. It seamed to shrug off all the attacks that hit it, it was going to be a long fight.
But just as it looked as though all was lost something surprising happened. And this is as best as I can recall what happened.

As I was sending sharp pointy things flying at the two headed Linnorm I felt something in my Trouser pocket move.
It was dingle mouse, I had forgotten that I had put him there the day before.
I started to cry and told Dingle mouse that the Linnorm is going to eat us all up with peanut butter!. But then suddenly Dingle mouse cried out “I got-a Idea! I know a big strong eagle called Jim. He is my friend and he owes me money!. Ill go try and get him” Then Dingle mouse jumped out of my pocket and ran off to find Jim.
I yelled out Please Hurry, Hurry the Linnorm is going to eat us soon.

So Dingle Mouse ran, he ran as fast as he could, he ran so fast his tail caught fire and he had to sit in a bucked of cold water to put it out. piiissshhhhh!!! “That’s better” Dingle Mouse said.

After a few more attacks on the Linoorm and Dingle mouse had reached the Tree where Jim the giant Eagle was asleep.JIM! JIMWAKE UP!! JIMWAKE UP!!! JIMYABBADABBADOO!!
Dingle mouse looked at Jim and he still was the same old Jim. Jim was a beautiful Eagle, he had brown feathers on his body, white feathers on his head a big yellow break and blue eyes and he was nearly as strong as god!
“HURRY UP JIM! The Linnorm is going to eat the party soon with peanut butter!”
So Jim the Eagle quickly took off his pajamas.
Dingle Mouse jumped on Jim’s back and away they flew. “Faster Jim Faster the Linnorm is winning the fight HURRYHURRY” Dingle Mouse said.

Still fight the Linnorm I yelled out to the others " can you see anyone coming to save us?"
“No No we cant” said the party. “Look” I said “the Linnorm is about to breath on us again!!”
The Linnorm let out and Evil and very long cackle " I’m going to get you" with another Evilly long cackle.
“Look” I said “in the distance its Jim the eagle, Jim the Eagle is coming!”
The Linnorm was inhaling for its final death breath on the party and then Jim the Eagle flew up to the party and said “quick get on my back, Hurry” the Linnorm was starting to breath out “STOPTHEM” screamed the Linnorm “ahhhhaaaa Stop them!”
But the party was on the mighty eagles back and away we flew away from the terrible Linnorm.
The linnorm was so angry it screamed “STINKYPOO!!! Stinky Poo Stinky Poo knickers knickers knickers” and then started to chase after the party. It said “I have some magic powder that I’m going to chuck on you and turn you into china-mans legs!”
Jim the eagle flew up and up and he hid inside a cloud and the Linnorm flew around and around, around and around the cloud it flew waiting for Jim and the party to come out.
Just then God came along and when he saw what the wicked Linnorm was going to do to the party he told the Linnorm “GO AWAY!” “NO I WONT, I WONT” said the Linnorm and tried to scrach Gods eyes out. So God pointed his finger at the Linnorm and Zap thump he had made the Linnorm Burst like a balloon and disappear like smoke.
When Jim the Eagle saw that the Linnorm was dead he flew the party back down to the castle entrance. We then said our goodbyes.

Well that is how I remember it the rest of the party may have a different view point.

Next we had to get into the castle so I was bet by the pally that I could not lift the portcullis “right ill show you” and it was a struggle to lift and the party standing around having a chat wile i was holding it open was more that a challenge but i was not going to show any strain on my face and as soon as they had eventually walked through I let it go, Ha! take that one you Pally.

Smugness was soon replaced with terror as I saw what was waiting for us.
There was a jabbawockee !!!
It was easily the hardest fight we have ever done. It was flying all around the castle, confusing some of us, eye beaming us, clawing us, biting us but in the end we prevailed.
Most of the magic users are now not looking forward to continuing on as I think they are nearly spent.

We looked around a bit and found a stable of undead horses we are going to leave them alone at the moment as they could have a curse on them that could be lifted if we Kill the Nymph.

Up stairs we came across a small room with many many statues of little unhappy demons and one happy demon. We removed the happy one and the room transformed before our eyes.
A pool of water formed in the fountain and plants grew to full bloom. The Pally took a drink of the water and felt fantastic but this left us with only about two more drinks worth. We decided to leave the rest there encase we need it.

A jet black crone, standing taller than me, hunched over, with massive long talons for fingernails ambled over to us. The dragon we had just killed lay still, oozing from a multitude of wounds and she seemed not the slightest concerned.

In fact, she wanted to chat and have a cup of tea. She was so polite, but Iomedae practically screamed at me that this creature was a great evil. My moral dilemma was that she was making no threatening moves, not trying to attack in any way, simply offering us a cup of tea back in her hut.

Nothing made me comfortable and moral compass veered wildly between smiting the evil being to letting her live because she posed no threat currently. With no ability to make a final decision myself, I popped back into the faerie ring and asked Andromeda Niska if she knew anything about this sort of hag and if they could be left to their own devices.

“Why aren’t you already killing it?”

It seemed to me that somebody who knew a lot more about hags made the call, and I was willing to trust her judgement as she had more than earned it over the past several years.

I stepped out of the faerie ring and immediately attacked. Within seconds, the evil crone was on her back from magic slamming into her and several large gashes graced her, courtesy of Learion, Oret and I.

Before we could finish her off, a large stone golem lumbered out of the forest, intent on protecting its mistress. Immediately trapped in a pit, it ceased to be a threat, but by the time we turned back to the hag, she had teleported to who only knows where.

The magical pit finally wore off and the stone golem re-appeared, but it was no match for our now mighty party. An ancient black dragon, this thing was not…

With little other options, we headed in the direction the tracks the hag had made led us in. This eventually took us to her hut, which was conspicuously empty. No other leads jumped out at us, so it was decided to head back to the castle.

This was a lengthy trip and Andromeda had decided to come with us.

Arriving at our destination, we were greeted by the castle, restored back to its full glory. It looked exactly like the illusion of it did, but this was clearly no illusion this time. The castle was back and looking formidable.

Lying at the front of the gates was a large, wingless, two headed dragon. imajica informed us this was a similar creature to the linnorm we had fought previously, but was unable to provide us with any other pertinent information.

With little other choice, I moved towards the great beast, only to be greeted by it flying towards us and unleashing a violent gout of acid over me. While I am more resistant to acid than most, the pain was immense and I called on Iomedae to heal me as I brought Briar to bear on it.

Khan unleashed some of the most concentrated weather and summoning spells I have ever seen him do, and still, the great beast not only with stood it all, but simply moved away. Four giant rocs, one of which was even larger than the linnorm itself, a typhoon whirling above our heads and other magical effects flew at it, only to be dismissed with scary ease.

And on top of that, it was able to use both heads to breath more acid on me, two streams colliding and inflicting as much pain as I recall ever feeling. Io called all the melee warriors in our party back to him and I have retreated at his urging.

The Hag came towards us and looked like she wanted to talk.
A little confused by this I tried to work out if she was going to deceive us or actually help.

She claimed to be one of the Nymphs neighbors and she had borrowed a cup of sugar from the nymph from time to time. She said she was not for or against us killing the Nymph.
I did not believe her though, she seemed very disingenuous.

The pally went to ask Andromida about hags and it must not have been flattering news because he came out swinging so I followed his lead.

Within seconds the druid had put the hag flat on the ground with a spell i have never seen before. The Hag must have been scared because she called out to her Stone Gollem to help and that Gollem was swallowed by the ground thanks to the mage.

Before I had the change to swing my sword the Hag had cast a spell and teleported away. We waited for the Gollem to pop out of the ground. As soon as it did it was attacked from all sides and eventually fell.

We decided to go looking for the Hag it took most of the day but we came across her house but no one was home.

Next we decided to go back to the 1000 Voices area to see if anything had changed there.

Once we got there we saw that it was no longer an illusion but it was now a fully formed castle again. We took the opportunity to rest and are about to go and see if we can kill the Castles guardian a Green two headed dragon thingie.

We had a plan. It was simple. Kill as many of the evil Nymphs lieutenants as possible.

To that end, we, using the map Briar had conveniently placed in my head, trekked in a specific direction to try and find as many as possible before going to kill Nyrissa. We had killed some treants and a giant and made our way further into the Thousand Breaths towards what looked like the resting place of the Rook from our dreams.

We entered its domain and there was a large rock formation, approximately a mile high some distance ahead of us. We could clearly see the rook perched at the top of it. That rook was massive. Simply massive.

As soon as we moved further, it swooped off the perch and dive bombed us, snatching Learion in its beak, but not before Oret had teleported up to it and tried to punch it into submission. While the plan was brave, it lacked a little finesse and he promptly fell about two hundred feet to land on the forest floor. I can still hear the “thoooommmmm” in my sleep from when he landed.

Unfortunately, while we could see whether Oret was alive, the rook took Learion and looked to be taking him to a great height to simply drop to his death as well. I couldn’t let that happen, so I repeated my spell from the giant combat, transferring Learion and myself.

Right into the beak of the mammoth bird! And the strength in that beak was phenomenal. At least, if the bird did drop me, I would be able to fly away, relatively unharmed.

This turned out to be unnecessary. Imajica invoked a great spell and both the rook and I were teleported back to the ground, next to the group, with me out of the birds beak. A mighty spell and timely as well.

And since the rook was trapped on the ground for a few moments, the party laid into it with furious abandon and it was soon no more than a gargantuan corpse.

The only thing left to do was check and see if the rook had stored any items of use in its nest, far up near the top of the rock formation. I tried flying up, but was unable to do so. It appears that one must have certain powers to fly far in this dimension.

Oret kindly climbed to the top, and a long exhausting climb it must have been, because he simply didn’t have the strength to climb back down and fell almost the entire way…further than his fall from the rook, not so long prior…

That “whoommpphhh” still reverberates like tinnitus to this day. Io was all set to start raising the monk from death, but he rose, looking a lot worse for wear, and walked towards us, apparently able to survive falls that would kill anybody else.

We were about to gather our thoughts and carry on when the voices that had been going constantly suddenly stopped talking and started screaming. It felt as though I was being pulled apart molecule by molecule. Thankfully, I blacked out and woke to find myself (and the rest of the group) back in the Thousand Voices…our own realm, and the gateway to Nyrissa’s realm of the Thousand Breaths.

Khan suggested a rest in his mushroom dimensional pocket, and I gladly agreed. The trip had proved painful, and I was ready for a rest. Andromeda Niska appeared to be having some significant difficulty moving and conversing since the Thousand Breaths had been ripped from it’s own dimension and she also needed a rest. Khan cast the spell and then had a quick scout while we made ourselves comfortable.

Our rest was quickly interrupted by a frantic mole heaving itself into the area, flopping onto the earth and transforming back into Khan. He had been spotted and chased by the very black dragon we had been hunting.

Since there was no way the dragon could get into the area, and we were sorely needing rest, we simply camped for the evening, restless as it may have been.

Khan walked out and found himself in the darkness of fog. He tried a mighty spell to get rid of it, but was unsuccessful. He retreated and Io and imajica bravely stepped out to see if the Dragon had gone but found only fog as well. The fog didn’t last much longer as the two casters were breathed on by the dragon, and both suffered terrible acid burns and stumbled back into the pocket dimension.

After some clerical healing and a multitude of powerful spells to increase our combat effectiveness and resistances, we all charged out to face the dragon.

It was a mighty beast, and was clearly a powerful spell caster in its own right. Thankfully, while it was extremely difficult to penetrate its thick scales, we were able to wear it down and it looks like the fall of the Thousand Breaths impacted on it as well, slowing it enough that we could get close enough to hit it with everything we had, spells and weapons alike.

It was unable to fly away and this ultimately cost its life. This was easily the most difficult combat I can remember, and it seems as though there is only more to come as some of the more perceptive of the group spotted a disgusting hag coming out of the surrounding forest as well…

I pity the statues

After putting an end the the four armed frost giant I was expecting something to happen.
But what happened after defeating the next opponent no one could have guessed that.

We were walking towards a massive stone pillar and on top of it was a very large looking Black Bird. Thinking “man that pillar is tall and we can see this bird without much difficulty it must be quite large”.
Turns out quite large is a massive understatement.
The Rook (as it turned out to be) dive bombed us at great speed and scooped me up in its beak and decided I would be a nice snack. I easily fitted inside its mouth as it nom’ed upon me.
Seeing my friends become smaller dots on the ground I made ready for my inevitable death and made peace with the world,
Its a shame I was on another plane of existence and my final resting place is a place filled with screaming and talking voices 24/7.

Then suddenly I was standing on the ground next to the rest of the party all apart from our pally. He has magically removed me from the Rooks beak and replaced himself there.
Our Monk decided teleporting to the Rook and giving it a thwack on its head was a great idea until it came to the falling part. He fell a very long way but got right back up dusted himself off and continued on.
I fired some shards at the Rook from my staff I acquired from the King of Pitax to no avail.
Our Mage ( he likes to call himself now soon to be Archmage ) sensing this could be the end of our pally again, somehow managed to get the Rook from far away and placed it on the ground next to the party.
With the Rook on the ground we all then took to it with all that we had and it soon fell.
Just to be sure the Monk put in a few more hits I’m not entirely sure he knew it was a “past” Rook but good to be sure.
Our monk then climbed the rock pillar to see if any loot was up there. He then decided that falling off the 200ft pillar was a great idea because he can slow his decent with his hands. He had never attempted such a great fall and his hands gave out some of the way down and fell with a tremendous thud. Luckily he survived two falls of death this day.

Then it happened.

I felt like I was being turned inside out. I was not sure what way was up or down, and the voices had stopped and we were no longer in 1000 Breaths, but a sort of mish mashed up version of our world and theirs.
I think we had done what the researches warned us about “uprooted” 1000 breaths and sort of done to 1000 breaaths what the Nymph was going to do to our Kingdom. How does that feel bitch???

We needed a rest after the Fall ( i’m going to call it that ) Our Druid made us a magical sleeping realm for the night then wanted to just take one last look around. A few moments later a crazed mole dived in the portal opening into our sleeping quarters and changed back into the Druid. It turns out he was spotted by a large black dragon who was hell bent on ending the Druids life force.

After a tense nights sleep we opened the portal door to see it was very foggy. We all buffed up and went out into the mist.
I came out to darkness and was met with a huge smack to the nose. The dragon was waiting and had cast many spells to hamper us.

It was a longish fight and the Dragon was not as deadly as he could have been, It look’s like anything that was native to 1000 breaths is suffering at the moment due to being ripped out of their realm, well that’s the theory at the moment.

Just after the Dragon was defeated we all saw a hideous looking hag thing stumble out of the woods heading towards us looking very pissed off.

After collecting the bloom from the Troll (which happened to be a necklace of tiny pixies trapped in little cages, immediately broken free of said cages and released to be with their, conveniently, related pixie sister we had back at the castle), we made a unanimous decision to travel to the Thousand Breaths, using the power of our collected blooms.

Cara was very confident in her ability to get home and Oret seems to have developed enough trust in her to let her do as she wished. Who am I to stop her from travelling that was when I would have done so myself?

Our goal was the very same elven ruins we had been too not so long prior. This time however, we were aware of the illusion so it did nothing to distract us. Khan pulled out the blooms and as suggested, a portal whomphed into existence.

The trip through was rough. It was as though somebody had grabbed me by my intestines and yanked me through a door. I was pleased to be through…although the whole area was totally suffused with, probably, a thousand voices, all talking at the same time. It was distracting.

But not as distracting as an additional voice in my head. It turns out that the trip into the Thousand Breaths imbued Briar with more power and now it was able to communicate with me telepathically, as well as cast some spells. It appears that at this stage, Briar and I are moving in the same direction, but I have a feeling that it will continue to attempt to dominate me and we will be forced to part ways in some manner. While I am here though, Briar is an invaluable ally, providing me with an accurate map as well.

I do feel weaker while using the blade, but Briar assures me that this is offset by it’s own increase in power. This is also not a promising sign, but I believe in Iomedae and she will protect me.

Our first decision, back up by Khan, was to ensure that the gate closed before heading off into the wilderness. No point leaving an easy back door into our realm while we are not there to protect it.

From there, we moved through the only path available, directly ahead, leading to a lake with black swans swimming on it. The eagle eyes of Learion spotted some differences in the trees here and he called out, warning us that these were actually treants.

The fight was brutal. More so than expected because the treants were casting lightning spells that were hurting us more than we expected and healing them at the same time. It took lusty blows and powerful healing, along with some magic to bring these things down. At least we were able to procure the payment for our druidic researcher in the form of the lightning touched bark.

We were in better shape than we perhaps had any right to be and so we carried on towards what looked like a grave site in the map Briar provided me.

We found ourselves face to face with a large, four armed frost giant. He called us over, telling us he had been waiting a long time for this since we had killed his kin. Oret gladly accepted his challenge and tore across the battlefield, pummeling the giant with blow after blow, but the monster remained standing.

In fact, it simply looked angrier. With no other real way of saving my monk friend, I resorted to a spell I haven’t used. The power of Iomedae switched Oret and I and he was left looking a little confused as he returned to his place back with the party, while I was now standing in front of the giant.

I’m glad I managed the spell, because as much as the giants mighty blows hurt, several did not get through my armour, but I think that Oret might have been in a significant amount of trouble if he had been there still.

Io held the beast in place while others wailed on him with a fury borne of the understanding that this giant would be able to kill any of us in a matter of seconds should he be allowed to strike again.

With his death came a collective sigh of relief, and some more healing from Io was required…

follow the yellow brick road.

I was useful ! I managed to track the troll and find out where it had gone.
May have had some help from some of the wedding party but …. I was useful.

Turns out that the Troll had taken the Druids wife and the others had tried to fight the Troll off. We meet up with my wife and the Tifling on the way. Imajica bamphed them back to pitax and we carryed on towards the troll.

We came across our monks bride to be just outside the Monkery. She told us that the Troll was there. We had a scuffle with some big cats and again as we were just outside the monkery.
After dispatching them we headed inside.

What we say was not the best. The troll had lined up a few lady’s and was judging them, it seamed he wanted to keep the best for his wife. Unfortunately the only one left alive was the druids wife.

Imajica jumped into action and sent three if the trolls pet cats to another plane. Io stoped the Troll in his tracks and then we struck down upon thee Troll with great vengeance and furious anger. He must have had eminence fortitude because what should have been a killing blow was shrugged off and he continued to fight and hurt some of the party before finally collapsing.
He was carrying a bloom!!!! a small necklace with very small pixies in very small cages.
I managed to open one and out popped a pixi and it grew to normal pixi size.
It was one Tickle wing, Finking wing, pixi wing? sister who kissed me and then popped out of existence I hope due to some sort of teleport.
We freed the rest and now we had three blooms time to see if the researchers were right and go save my father and our Kingdom.

We got the Druids wife back to safety and we carried on to 1000 Voices.
When we got there a Witch and two guards were there waiting for us. She is going to come with us just in case we fail I guess.

Let me be the first to say I do not want to stay here too long, there are 1000 voices crying out at all times it is going to make my calm less calm not to mention sleeping. I am hoping that the Druids sleeping spell thing helps.

We walked for about three hours and came across a lake with black swans.
I was looking around and I saw something move in the trees, we have found our tree-ent and not just one.
After a electrifying fight we had some bark from the Tree-ent for our researcher back home.

On to the next part of the 1000 Voices and we came across a very cold graveyard and one very large and many armed Frost Giant. Our pally took most of the brunt of the attacks and we defeated the monstrosity.
I was kind of expecting something to happen as we were told that defeating the fey’s Bigger Minnions would stuff up this plane. Maybe this Frost giant was not a Boss Minnion who knows? On to the next.

So after saving my queen we found another bloom trophy and rescued some pixies trapped within it.

We escorted the ladies to Pitax and headed off to try the gate to the first world. We were joined at the gate by Andromeda. She has taken a very heroic view that if she puts our plane at risk its best she comes with us to try and fix the problem. Io was a little upset she was with us but I can see what he sees in her. Should she survive I think a reward would be fitting.

When we get to the gate it shimmers and bursts into live like some copyrighted science fiction gate that shall remain nameless. Planegate does not quite sound right though.

Through we go. Fuck its noisey here. Once we get there I immediately touch the bloom trophies to Briar as this seems to make it more useful and I am hoping it closes the gate so that we can move on towards our goal without leaving an open portal for who knows what to head to our homeland and destroy it. This results in the portal shutting down yay and Briar getting stronger yay??? It also results in Briar becoming intelligent and distracting our Paladin a fair bit.

Briar does give our Paladin the map of this kingdom which is good cause we would have no fucking idea where to go otherwise. We set off down the path and notice some very uniform and un-natural looking trees. a few hours later Lerian states "Hmm if those trees were moving I would swear they were Treants and then they bloody moved didn’t they.

We quickly disposed of the 5 or so Treants and took our trophy and they were clearly Lightning Struck Treants given they cast lightning spells. another 3 or 4 hours on and we come across a 4 armed Frost Giant. He put up a reasonable fight but we quickly dispose of him as well. Not that the mage/wizard dude did much.

So of to find the trolls that kidnapped my queen and the bridal party. We managed to pick up the tracks quite easily and find two of the ladies along the way. Further tracking and we find the bride to be. She has followed the troll to an old monestary (or Monkary as our monk refers to it). He has my wife the queen inside.

It appears that the Troll has some Sabertooth cats as his protectors. I change into a small animal and sneak in. We quickly overpower the cats and the Troll dies in a ball of flame from my Flaming Sphere. The queen is rescued and all is well again…… for now.

Upon learning that the wedding party was not at the Tournament Grounds (our biggest clue was the lack of women planning a wedding and a fair number of dead guards), Learion spotted a large set of tracks. These tracks could conceivably belonged to a troll as they were huge compared to human prints.

They were also followed by three sets of small human prints. Perhaps one of the women was knocked unconscious and was being carried?

Following the tracks appeared to be little issue for those with the skill. I simply followed those that could.

It was a long walk, but we were determined to find our sisters, wives, fiances and friends. While the endless walking was getting us closer, even we tired, so we camped in one of Khan’s mushroom circles.

Before resting, Imajica changed into a dragon (it appears that he simply enjoys this form) and scouted ahead of us. He returned not long after carrying bothAshularae and Ekho Eberheart, one of whom had an injured ankle, that Io promptly healed.

It turned out that the troll had entered the grounds and killed the guards (and was helped by several large pumas? No, that’s not a word…warthogs…) while searching for women. It was armed with a large polearm and powered through the guards and even the women with little trouble, taking Lady Quintessa Maray with him.

This troll spoke in common as well. Once the remaining women had recovered sufficiently, they began tracking the troll as Cara Sellemius (Oret’s fiance) was an accomplished ranger in her own right. The other two were slowing her down so they elected to return, hoping to find us coming after them and Cara would continue following the beast.

Keeping the women safe was the best move, so they were teleported back to Shrike City by Imajica, allowing us to continue on without having to worry about their safety.

The trail led directly to the badly dubbed “Monkery”. As we approached, Cara spotted us and filled us in on the layout. This really meant a simple snatch and grab approach via the front door was our best bet.

We met resistance from three huge sabre-tooth cats in front of the church itself, but while they were large and powerful, they were simple animals and didn’t really stand a chance against battle hardened warriors and magic users.

With the final mewing gurgling from their throats, the felines died and our way inside was clear. I tried diplomacy first, hoping to free our Queen before violence put paid to our hopes of rescue. Sadly, this was not successful, and charging in, heedless of the danger was paramount.

Except…

…

…both our King and Magister had disappeared. With no recourse, we moved ahead anyway.

As it turned out, they were both already inside, shape changed or invisible. The remaining three huge felines were intent on imposing their will on us until a rainbow burst out, sending them to different realms, burning them, and generally causing all sorts of issues. Khan was doing something with a large ball of flame as well, keeping the troll occupied hopefully.

Magic, both divine and arcane rang out in concert to weapons slashing and the cats died swiftly, while the troll barely had time to lift a finger as he was rendered mad and held in place, only to break free in time to be met by a veritable storm of sword blows, ending his life and threat.

Oret had kept his eyes on the goal and teleported to the Queen and freed her while the rest dispatched the enemy combatants.

With the death of yet another Steve, the now familiar glow of a bloom power was found and stored with the other two. It looks like we may have enough power to try and breach the wall between our world and the Thousand Breaths. I have a feeling that we might be headed there quite quickly.

So the ruins provided nothing for us. As we searched however Lerian found a crying Pixie whos sisters had been captured by a man made of worms and taken back to the other plane. She took a liking to me and returned with us to the Palace for her own safety. We will try and rescue them when we manage to get to the First World.

When we return to the capital Lerian is approached by his brother who wants to take our friendly Witch to the First World and kill her as he things she is a link that can cause ultimate disaster. We rejected that plan. While discussing options we are made aware of another Bloom in the swamps. The Bog Striders are being killed by huge worms. We travel to Varnhold and quickly dispatch the worms and retain another bloom trophy to help us travel to the First World.

On our return home we receive word that all our ladies have been captured by some trolls. So we are off to sort that now.

While there was nothing immediately found in the ruins, I stayed to look further while others wandered off. Magic appeared to be the most useful way to find more information, but much like the mundane eyes, nothing more could be found.

It was at this point that the search was given up and the trip home was started…with a new companion as well. Khan had picked himself up a pixie, that seemed most fascinated with his helm.

Although apparently it was Learion that found her. Or rather, heard her crying. It seems as though a man made of worms came through the portal (and he wasn’t the only one to come through a portal, as our friends the satyr and ettins came through one as well) and kidnapped all her sisters. She had been hoping that we would open a portal so she could fly through and rescue her sisters.

With our assurance that we would rescue her sisters, she accompanied Khan via his helm back to Shrike City to stay in the palace, ostensibly for her safety.

James Tanaster held a private, family meeting with Learion, but it wasn’t a long one. Learion had his thoughts of his father confirmed and James suggested that we take Andromeda Niska to the Thousand Breaths and leave her there as she appeared to be the link to other realm.

His first option was to simply kill her…

Thankfully Learion outright refused that. After a talk with her, it was decided (she made the decision) that she stay in the palace, with a couple of scrolls of teleport, an army and at least two guards with her at all times, just for her protection. Extravagant, but the juice is worth the squeeze apparently.

Word comes from the swamps near Varnhold. The kindly bog striders were being killed by mammoth worms. Thankfully, aside from their humongous size, they were not too much of a threat, although one did try to eat Learion. Once they were killed, they grotesquely continued to writhe, even as they shrunk back to their original size.

The return to Varnhold allowed the bog striders to return home safe again. But our families were apparently not safe! All the women in the wedding organisational party had been kidnapped by a troll…I pity that Troll. Clearly Steve has not managed to get the word out to all of Stevekind. Imajica may be in line for a wee talking to…

You want us to abandon Andromida?

After looking around the ruins I soon see that I am of no help as it is a magical “thing” needed to open this place up.

I start to look else wear and I hear some crying coming from a tree in the distance. A small Pixi is there crying about the loss of her sisters. I ask who would do such a thing? She tells me that a Wriggly Worm man came and took them. This worries me so I ask has anything else come through the gates? and the Ettins and the sytar did. This bit of information is the most worrying, If these things can come through the portal why has Nirrisa not come through? What we have all been assuming so far is that is really really wants her sword back along with her emotions back but what if this is not the case? Some might say because she is not whole she can not go through the portal. But what if she is so far gone she no longer cares about her other half and now just wants to destroy anything that is not her 1000 Breaths. We do not have enough information yet to say but both options are worrying.

I start to calm the Pixi down and say we are trying to get to were they were taken and than we could save them and return them to her. This seams to lighten the mood and then our Druid comes over and the Pixi takes a liking to his helmet.
We decide to take her with us back to our capital.

Upon reaching our capital we are accosted by what seams like everyone wanting “stuff” from 1000 Breaths. We will have to make a list.
My brother requested me for a talk so I go and see what he has to say. Before he had a chance to speak I ask him when he last saw dad and it seams to fit what I now know.
He tells me that he and a few other have come up with a theory. Andromida is a link to 1000 Breaths and if she dies here she will open a kink to 1000 breaths. He also suggests that we take her to 1000 Breaths with us and leave her there to die. I instantly tell him that that is not going to happen.
Theory’s start flowing and I come up with the idea to release Andromida of this burden by dying and then getting resurrected but I am told that it may not work so that idea is gone.
We decide to keep her a safe as we can. She has teleport spells, armed guards, two army’s, the local law, the castle and its gates to keep her safe.

We get word from Varnhold there is a bloom in play in the swamps and its been a few days.
We make haste to where some giant red worms were last spotted. We have a bit of time to plan. And all goes well. I got licked by one of the three worms but we managed to end the fight with relative ease.

Back to Varnhold to say it is safe to go back and we are told that all the wedding party from Pitax has been abducted and this includes my wife. My vengeance will be swift.

So we finish of the Frost Giants and destroy the Monolith/Grave Stone. It turns out that the later was the source of the bloom which was quickly added to Briar.

A fair bit of healing (for me) later and we are on our way home to recover before heading to the Thousand Acres Woods or something to have a look at the gate. I wonder if Pooh will be there with Piglet.

While we are at home the researchers give us some useful information about accessing the plane we need to go to. So far these guys have proved themselves way more useful than the supposed Druid.

As we are about to leave to find Pooh and Co. we get a visit from Andromeda. Her place is now under the influence of what we assume and find out later on is a Bloom. We travel to have a look and sure enough there is a few miles of brambles with some giant like creatures in amongst them.

We dispatch the giants and then the pods that are being grown that have new ones in them and the bloom is destroyed. Luckily we did it all before they could regrow or we would still be fighting them. Splitting up in this instance was a good thing.

I take the remaining bloom item as we need 3 or so to be able to enter the other plane. So no charging up Briar with this one at this stage.

Off to see Pooh and Co. and we find that there are some ruins there with a enchantment on them that makes them look unruined. Interesting.

After defeating the Frost giants we examined the massive monolith that stood before us to figure out why the snow had not dissipated and that when we looked at it we saw the names of people we cared about engraved into it, Imajica worked his magic and the monolith became blank and it was still snowing. While Roche took me up for a fly around to check for more clues Rafe decided he was going to attack it and started to chip away, Learian decided it looked like fun and he to joined in, then Khan and Imajica stepped up and started throwing spells at it and eventually the monolith shattered into thousands of shards and one of those shards glowed. which meant that that part was the bloom so Roche placed his sword upon it.

Learian put it to the group that he wanted to go check out the gate at 1000 voices, so we voted and it was a yes but we would call in at home first before we went and when we got back the researches had news for us and it was very helpful. As we were about to leave Andromeda came running up to us with ripped cloths and scratches explaining that big plants are attacked her house, when we got near her house a good section of land was also cover in vines and thorns, we through a few ideas at it but nothing seemed to be doing much to it so Roche took me for a fly ( i was the wind beneath his wings ) to see if we could spot anything from above, as we flew over i spotted 3 large creatures with 3 arms. Roche came up with the idea that we should split into 3 teams and attack them, Khan was keeping one occupied Roche and Rafe went for one of the others which left the last one for Learian, Imajica, Io and myself. Imajica turned into a dragon so we jumped on and headed off. Once defeated they dissolved into the ground, Imajica took Io and myself to Khan and was going to go back to collect Learian but when we got there, there was a sheep and a dog so it would appear Khan was successful in his task as well. After getting the ok we killed the sheep and again it dissolved into the ground and then from that sprouted a pod and in the pod was a smaller version of what we had just fought so we killed that as well we then went and destroyed the other two before they could cause any more trouble, one of them glowed which meant this was a bloom but we kept this one away from the sword as we were told by the researches that we will need at least 3 to open the gate.

Once the vines and thorn disappeared we headed back to the city only to be welcomed by the towns folk who had watch the battle unfold, with the celebrations over we teleported to Pitax and made our way to the elven ruins and on the way we ran into some fey dragons who were after some berries and some of them followed us. When we got there all we saw was crumbled ruins but when we went through the gate the place seemed to be immaculate, Roche worked out that it was and illusion and that it was just a ruin.

Two more blooms to go then.

We defeated the Frost Giants with relative ease but the bloom had not finished with us.
It still remained very cold and a massive monolith stood before us.
Rafe started to chip away at it, I asked him if he would mind if we took turns smashing this evil stone thing that had the names of my nearest and dearest on it. He obliged so away we whacked.
I heard a throat clear behind us as our king said stand away, and then cast some sort of fire spell at it. After a bit the monolith shattered into many many pieces and one of them glowed. Briar was again stronger I just hoped it was not making this Evil Fey stronger too.

The bloom dealt with I asked the group if they would accompany me to the gate in 1000 Voices to see if we could find a way into 1000 Breaths. The answer was yes but lets stop in our capital on the way to stock up.

Good thing we did as the researches has news for us. three blooms trophies are possibly needed to open the gate through to the 1000 Breaths. I hoped that Briar was enough to get us through but the researches seamed not to think so.
The place that the fey lady lives is a house called House at the end of time. 1000 breaths is all so not to stable. It is a few places held held together by her champions on their glade. The researches seam to think if we defeated each sections champion we could destabilize 1000 breaths. This seams like a great idea to me.
.
As we went to leave, Niska came up to us not looking to happy. The plants are attacking my house. Big – big plants. Sweet we have a Druid this will be easy i thought to myself, Nope No it was not.

Got near to her house and indeed the plants were big and pointy and slashey. In closer inspection there were three troll things with three arms in there too.
We tried a lot of ideas some effective some not and it looked like we would have to fly / drop in into the middle of this Briar patch and take them down one by one.
Our pally said “no! lets split into three groups and take them on at once” and so we did. The troll things tried to escape us but were all cut down or turned into sheep so I’m told.
After their death they waited a bit and then turned into goo/dust and went into the ground and a pod sprouted up from its goo. This was unusual so i cut the pod down and inside was a smaller version of what we had just killed, like the phoenix rising from the ashes these things rise up again in seed pods.
Again one glowed with magic but this time we kept it away from Briar. Two more to go.

Back at the city and everyone was cheering for us. This was quite cool I guess they could see us this time and not just hear stories of our deeds.

We then teleported to Pitax and began our journey to 1000 Voices.
Some fey dragons lead us to the ruins and wanted some berries in return.

From the outside of the gate into 1000 Voices it looked like we were expecting, an old rundown ruin.
I steeped through the gate and everything changed. Everything now looked like it would have when it first was built.
I asked what people could see from out side and they all said a ruin. Our king jumped the fence and saw what i saw but he did all so notice some statues of a lady and they looked a lot like the fey lady in the house where my father has been taken.
It apparently was a very powerful spell on the area to make it look new again, why would someone put a powerful spell on an old run down ruin is beyond me.
But what I was hoping for did not happen. There is no portal or opening to 1000 Breaths I guess the researches were correct.

The giants were powerful, strong and determined, but the combined power of our small group has withstood stronger challenges than these, at far greater odds. They stood nary a chance. If only these beings could have been negotiated with, they might have kept their lives. Still, evil must be met and destroyed as it is found for the good of Iomedae and our fledgling kingdom.

All that was left was the cold, and a massive ice monolith, detailing all the names of those close to me in common, as those it was recording their deaths, like a giant tombstone. The bloom was obviously still in effect as the cold was still clearly evident. With little idea on how to deal with this, I asked if I could carry Oret further into the skies to search for more clues.

While this didn’t reveal any more information, those below focused on destroying the monolith. Fire, dazzling rays and swords all struck the ice, finally toppling it over, and like that, a breath of warmer air flowed through the mountain pass over the shattered remains of the ice monolith.

One of the shards radiated the now familiar aura of the bloom and I touched my sword to it, the essence being drawn into Briar yet again.

With this bloom dealt with, it was becoming obvious that the blooms were getting grander in scale, and this represented an ever growing threat to our kingdom, prompting Learion to insist that we go to where this gate may be.

With no other real leads at this stage, I agreed, but as it was on the other side of our kingdom, we stopped off in Shrike City first to recover.

The researches that Imajica had working on our behalf were able to find out a reasonable amount of information for us, but the most valuable was the suspected requirement of at least three blooms worth of essence to open the gate through to the Thousand Breaths.

As we made to leave, we were met with a disheveled Andromeda Niska, angry at the something destroying her home. At Io’s very strong insistence, we moved quickly to help, only to find a large wall of thorny bushes not far from the city gates.

Flying above them provided us with the view of over two miles of this scrub, thick and fifteen feet high, and apparently growing as Andromeda had not traveled through that much of it to get to us. Inside, those sharp eyed of us spotted three large humanoid shapes moving around, plucking seeds from the thorns and planting, having more grow in their place remarkably quickly.

The three giants, three armed and standing at nearly twenty feet tall each, were spread throughout the forest of thorns. Both Khan and Imajica used fire to good effect, but it only served to anger the plants and they struck out in retaliation.

With little other options, I devised a plan to attack each of the giants at the same time, since they could not be corralled together. Khan, in the form of a sparrow, was to harass and detain one, Learion, Imajica, Oret and Io were to destroy the second and Rafe and I were to destroy the third.

Rafe is clearly very adept with his weapon of choice, and between the two of us, the giant was unable to flee and was cut down, it’s evil no longer endangering the kingdom…or so I thought.

We flew back to help the other dispose of their opponents, but there was only a wolf herding a sheep remaining, so clearly our King had been successful in his task as the other were there, blood staining their weapons, as proof of their vanquished enemy.

The sheep was quickly cut down and a pod grew from the ground where it died. Horrifyingly, inside the pod was small version of what we had just killed, and it was growing at an alarming rate. This was quickly dashed to pieces and the other two were sought and destroyed.

Once this was done, thankfully the forest of thorns dissipated and left a thorn that emitted the bloom essence. Khan kept a hold of this one instead of allowing it to be absorbed by Briar. we will see how this works to open the gate in time.

The people of Shrike City, able to see the threat from the walls, were exceedingly grateful and thanked us profusely as we returned, like conquering heroes from the sagas “My Adventures – The Life of Theros Vitalstatistix, vol.3”.

Our original plan was to go to where the gate supposedly was, so some teleportation magic later, we were in Pitax and making our way to the site of some elven ruins. An amusing run in with some fey dragons sped our way to the place.

A crumbled ruin greeted us, but when we went through the gates, the place changed into something majestic. Those with magic senses were able to tell the rest of us that this was a powerful illusion magic. Iomedae gave me the strength to withstand the magic and I was able to see it for what it really was…a crumbling ruin.

After dealing with Imajica’s bad dream ( not that there was much i could do ) went back to bed.
Over the next few night’s some of the others had a similar experience, Khan and his T-Rex wondering round the court yard was interesting but Learian throwing his rattle at the bird seem to do the trick tho.

We went to see the real druid who had some information for us but it came with a but, he had located a copy of the book we were after and it was in the hands of a Lady who was an art lover, we arranged a meeting with her and she would hand over the book ( and here comes the but ) if she could have her name on one of the art building’s we have, she wanted her family name associated with good art and this seamed like a fair request so we could have the book.

After a look through the book we notice that the last page was missing, we also realized that stuff from the other pages had been happening to our Kingdom over the past week or so and we also had a possible location of the entrance to 1000 breaths. In our search for the last page of the book we discover that Learian’s father is alive and is a blind servant in 1000 breaths, but that is only a guess at the moment but that seems to be what the evidence is pointing to. We hear of another Bloom incident and we head off to sort it out and now we are in the middle of sorting out some frost giants.

So after killing the Ettins we head of home. Some disturbing dreams causing a few issues with them coming true including me having to subdue a confused T-Rex. It appears that Lerian managed to solve the dreaming bloom issue by killing the big fucking bird in the dreams.

The “Druid” who is yet to actually prove he is a druid managed to find us a copy of the Book were seeking. It came at the cost of some toffee nosed tart having the museum named after her. Turns out the book isn’t complete however as the back page is missing.

We set about trying to find some way of getting the back page. No spells seem to work. We track down the previous owners no luck but it was complete when they sold it. The back page is a map. Toffee nosed tart seems to remember a break in with nothing missing maybe that was when it went missing.
There was someone else looking for it a while ago. Turns out it was Lerians dad.

So I scry for his dad and fuck me he is alive but blind and serving some fucking Fey in what we assume is the plane we need to go to. When I see the fey he serves I am immediately struck blind. Well that sucks. IO quickly fixes that for me.

A lot of discussion about should we try and head on over to that plane but I decree we should find the map page first. Besides we also need to find some way to stop ourselves turning blind as soon as we look at the Fey bitch otherwise it will be game over.

In the meantime we get reports of an area that is now snowing in the middle of summer. Onto the next bloom we head and we are now engaged in scrap with some frost giants.

The return trip to Pitax was joyful as Ashularae was re-united with her family.

We were also informed once we had spoken to our new Thousand Breaths advisor that he had sourced a copy of the book he was missing (after being forced by the King to cast a druid only spell to prove his druidic credentials).

This book appeared to be in the hands of a large woman from a wealthy and arts sensitive family. She professed a loud and horrified hatred of the arts abuse under the previous rulership and would gladly return the book to us for the small bargain of having her family name once again associated with something classy in the arts world.

So a suddenly re-named theatre and naming ceremony later and we had the book in our hands. It was obvious that something was wrong even as we were taking possession of it as the woman looked guilty. It was missing the last page and she professed to know nothing of the page, claiming it had been in the family like that.

Leads were scrounged up and the best we could come up with was tracing the book back to its original owner. Since the book had been bought by way of auction, the receipt was sought and found. This allowed us to find the auction house and find the seller. It turned out to be the Pitax museum selling the book and there was a clever staff member who remember the book quite well. Well enough to recall that the last page was a map, but unfortunately, not quite well enough to know what the map looked like since it had been sold years prior.

Another interesting piece of information came up as well. Somebody else had been after the book. An older gentleman had been seen asking around about it as well. One thing led to another and it turned out that this was Learions father.

A simple scrying spell told us something that we hadn’t known prior to this (Learion not having pushed particularly hard in the search for his father up to this point)…his father was ALIVE!

Alive, blind, and serving a green skinned elven looking woman, presumably in the Thousand Breaths. And clearly the Nymph ability to make somebody blind works through spells as well since our King (who was ably scrying up till that point) went blind as soon as he saw the nymph as well.

Jubilost Narthropple was sought out and he appeared to recognise some of the information in the book as a location in our lands. The book also seemed to tell the same tales that we were currently living through, but not in the same order as the book.

We started having strange dreams. First it Imajica and his tower was surrounded by gales, lightning and violent weather, striking in through his towers windows. Unsure of what to do, we watched as Khan appeared to calm the weather with a thought and retreated back to bed. As the nights went on, more of our populace complained of these dreams impacting them as they woke to find them come true.

My own dream led to me being chased by a whirlwind and I was unable to escape from the weather. I awoke to the localised whirlwind in my bedroom, throwing myself and my belongings around the room as I fled for the door.

A large reptilian beast was seen being escorted from the palace by Khan as well, apparently this had something to do with his dream as well.

Learion seemed to be the only one to deal with the dream differently. His description of his dream was short and sweet. “I threw a rattle at the bloody bird and it died.” He was referring, of course, to the large black bird that we had all seen in our dreams.

Our next indication that there was another bloom happening was the request to clear the pass near Varnhold as it was snowed shut in summer. An unusual occurrence indeed and we set out to investigate, only to come across some vaguely familiar frost giants blocking our way once we had trekked further into the pass itself.

With only six giants blocking our way, we were intent on making short work of them, but our King may have made himself too much of a target in an attempt to buy our party an advantage, but we were able to make the advantage tell as we set about cutting these over large problems down to size…

Who knew Druids had such distrust.

After the Ettin fight we went home to rest.
Had some weird dream, killed a bird with my rattle felt at ease again.

We went to see if the Druid we hired had come up with anything. Our Druid has such distrust for this other Druid he wants him to cast a spell to make sure he is in fact a Druid.
anyway he had some information… but you gusset it, it came a a cost.
The Druid had located a book. It was in the hands of a Lady ( if you could call her that ) in Pitax, an art lover, this coming from someone in Pitax did not stand her in good stead.
We had the meeting with her and she would hand over the book if she could have her name on one of the “Art” building’s we have but not in Pitax. She wanted her family name associated with good art again. This seamed like an easy request and so it was made so.

A few days later in our capital one of our art building’s was renamed, there was a big renaming ceremony and all was good with the world. She was happy we were happy that was until we got the book and it was missing the last page….sigh

We looked through the book and we saw that is struck a passing resemblance to what had been happening to our kingdom the past few weeks.
Looked a little closer at the beginning of the book and we now know the possible location of where to go to enter 1000 breaths. Through a gate in the location known as 1000 voices thanks to our Ranger for the knowledge on that area.
That was enough for me, We had the sword, we had the location, lets give it a go because blooms are ramping up, yes each time we defeat one we are making the sword better but we might be making this Fey Lady better too, who knows?
But we decide to find the final page first.
In doing so we managed to find my Father… he seams to be blind and serving some green skin elf or elf’s best guess he is in 1000 breaths and blind because of a Nymph as our Druid also went blind as soon as he saw it.
So dads is alive and was after the book too and possibly in 1000 breaths. How he got there is maybe on the last page of the book. Utter utter bastard he is alive and never sort me out…. we will have words.

Bloom alert Bloom alert! Snow in the middle of summer This resembled a page in the book so off we go and try to kill some nasty Frost Giants.

So we decide we are off to Pitax to let the ladies sort out the wedding details for Oret and his Bride.

We are just about to leave when the expert on the Bloom we were seeking turned up. Turns out he is a Druid aswell. Then the wearisome jokes… oh finally a real druid blah blah blah… Ha fucking ha.

So we now have a researcher who as it was pointed out may not know as much as he thinks because he didnt even know about the sword so I don’t know if he is as knowledgeable as we are lead to believe. He was prepared to do some more research for us based around a book that has been destroyed by the previous King of Pitax. He asks for a piece of Treant that has been hit by lightening. We have said yes but I will do my own research as to what possible implications this strange request may have before we actually hand it over.

Anyway off to Pitax. We leave the ladies to sort the wedding and head off to the Village attacked by Wyverns to try and find the thieflings parents. When searching we were attacked by Ettins and a Satyr.

We dispatched the Ettins with the help of my Elemental allies after Imagica had put the Satyr into a maze.

When the Satyr reappeared we hit him with everything we had. I polymorphed him into a turtle only to receive a gobful of abuse from Imagica accusing me of only doing it so that the rest of the team didnt get the magic items he was carrying. I bit back which I think shocked most of the group.

All in all it indicates what some of the party think of me so why do I bother???

As we were about to head off to find the Tiefling’s parents a Druid turns up, apparently we sent for someone to help us with the blooms, he had been studying them in Pitax before all copies of the book a 1000 breaths were ordered to be destroyed. Questioned by Roche it would appeared that he was an expert, but he had a request, he would help us in exchange for a piece of treant that had been struck by lightning. A strange request but we agreed and a deal was struck.

With a quick side trip to drop the Druid off we headed out for the task in hand, as we reached the village it was not a pretty site, we started looking for the Tiefling’s parents remains when we were ambushed by a bunch of Ettins and a Satyr. Imajica made the fight easier by sending the Satyr into a maze and then we made short work of the Ettins, we then prepared for the Satyr return. Because we were ready for him he got a bit of a hammering to start with a few good shots put in by him, then the Khan turned him into a turtle, which upset Imajica and he told us not to kill him until he could turn him back something to do with lute, and if we killed him in that form everything would that’s the way he would stay and the lute would be gone, so we held off. When he was back to his normal self we finished him off

all the girls get together

Well it’s that time, time for our little rock to get married.
He is super excited about it too. Never seen him so giddy.
All the lady’s including my wife have gone to Pitax to set the scene and get everything ready for the big day. It promises to be a day full of fun and festivities.

While they are getting the place ready the rest of us went to see what we could do about the Tiefling parents but before we went the Real Druid we sent for showed up. After a short interview he was set to work. He did set us a task of finding a book that was written by a man years back who is the only known person to visit 1000 breaths and come back. Should make for some interesting reading.

Off to the the village that was attacked by Wyvern’s.
We arive and the place lookes like….. well it had been attacked by a back of Wyvern’s. Body parts everywhere.
We were having a good look around when we were ambushed!.

A satyr and many ettin, hell bent on ending our existence.

By the look of the gear on the Satyr we were in for a tough fight but Imajica to the rescue and good bye Satyr you are off to a maze for a wile. The Ettin’s we dispatched with some ease as I think they were to look to the Satyr for inspiration and coordination.
We surrounded the area we knew the Satyr was to return to and made ready our attacks.
He came back and got a few good waloping form most of us and was looking rather unwell.
He then got turned into a turtle by the druid to the displeasure of Imajica who then yelled at the druid and told the rest of us to STOP attacking the poor little turtle. Reason was all the gear was now inside the turtle and he really wanted it’s bow. So he did some magic reverse thing and the turtle was now a Satyr again and got smashed once again. Good thing too I now have a magical helmet that allows me to teleport so I am a happy chappy.

Traveling back to Shrike City, we started to look further into our issues with blooms.

Our luck held and our request for a specialist in Blooms had garnered a recipient. An elderly Druid who had spent many years researching blooms in Pitax before King Castruccio Irovetti outlawed certain books and stopped the research dead in its tracks since the books were destroyed.

We questioned the man and it appeared true that he was the foremost expert. His request was simple. He’d gladly help us in exchange for a piece of treant that had been struck by lightning. A strange request to be sure, but we’ve dealt with other strange requests over the years.

A quick trip back to the Eberheart family farm was on the cards. I wanted to ensure that we got a fair cost of the destruction caused by the last bloom and replace those destroyed crops from kingdom funds to ensure our subjects could continue to provide for both themselves and those who purchased from them. I’ve got the figures and it will be dealt with in the next treasury meeting.

Our next step was to return to Pitax to allow our new researcher to continue his work. This made for a short trip up to Ashularae home village. I was determined to make things right and earn her loyalty so that we would have a talented agent working for us for more than simple money, as she has done previously.

The village was still standing when we arrived, but damaged in parts (although nothing to stop in being a functioning village), and sans the actual living villagers. I’ve seen plenty of destruction and death, but the sight of a whole village destroyed by rampaging wyverns was still shocking, and I caught Io holding back emotions as well.

We began to search, and somebody had the clever idea to search for tiefling remains as this would shorten the search considerably as there were not many of them.

While searching, we were ambushed by two headed ogres and a satyr. Thankfully Imajica’s warning allowed us to react quickly and Oret’s leadership gave us a vital jump on the newly found enemy.

We have seen Imajica grow in power from a small rainbow flinging elf to a mighty eleven wizard, an archmage in his own right now. But he seems to have developed a liking for sending enemies to another realm, or maze, as he calls it. The spell seems simple enough to cast as the verbal components appear to be simply asking the unlucky recipient if they are a Minotaur.

The satyr, unfortunately for him, was not, and he duly disappeared. That left us with a large number of two headed ogres (I’m told they are called ettins). Several spells, some huge fire elementals and some impressive sword play from both Learion and our newest companion, Rafe, dispatched the remaining. Even when half a dozen more appeared from behind us, they realised the error of their ways and fled, only to be cut down by the fine blade of Rafe as they ran.

All that was left was the satyr. He appeared shortly after the fire elementals winked out of existence again. And promptly was slashed, magicked and turned into a tortoise, before almost immediately being blinded, turned back into a satyr and died, without even getting off an attack.

We have started to become truely fearsome in how well our party deals with threats.

We also managed to find ourselves the family we were looking for and after asking their permission to bring them back from the dead, Io raised them all. Now we just need to escort them to their daughter in Pitax to ensure we have kept our part of the bargain.

So we dealt with that first bloom and then went home to sort out some kingdom issues that needed sorting. New roads and highways were built. The kingdom is getting more user friendly now which is good.

While discussing what to do next we were interupted by one of Oret’s farm hands. Apparently his farm was under attack by some sticks.

Bloom number 2 has struck. We quickly teleported to his farm to see what was what. On arriving yes the farm was certainly under attack and we were quickly surrounded. A couple of quick wall of fire spells, some fire protection and some exploding and we dealt with the sticky stick things. I was amused by some Kobolds calling themselves the Kob Squad who had set out looking for adventure, fame and fortune. They had been trying to help aswell. I of course thanked them and have promised them some silver swords for their troubles. (some silver carving knives will do the trick).

We decided that we needed to track down the source of this bloom and eventually found it. Again withe use of magic spells we were quickly able to remove the offending sticky stick sticks from this plane and end this particular bloom.

We are now pretty sure there will be more to come until we deal with what is actually causing them. Until we can find out more we will just have to wait and deal with them as they crop up.

Time to go find some silver carving knives and present them to the Kob Squad.

After dealing with the bloom we headed back to our Kingdom to make sure everything was running smoothly, Roche had promised the tiefling that he would see what he could do about her family and preparation were made to leave the next day. It was at that point a young boy who worked on my family farm came running up to us trying to explain that the farm was being attacked by sticks, i told him to catch his breath then to explain what was happening, and it turns out we heard him right the first time, sticks were attacking the farm including the workers on it. After he explained what they looked like Khan came up with a few ideas on what they could be and after a brief discussion Imajica teleported us to the farm.

Upon arriving the farm was deserted and some of the crops had been damaged, Imajica spotted one of the offending sticks as it walked to him with open arms with being warned not to pick it up he did and it bit him on the arm then proceeded to let out a scream and then the rest came a running, Khan put up a ring of fire between us and them, Learian started swinging his sword but but was only getting a few at a time, realizing that i wasn’t going to be able to do much i abundant step to the farm house to find torches to light so i could a least do some damage, appearing in the farm house surprised my brother and his wife a bit but i quickly explained the situation grabbed a couple of torches to light and then abundant step back to the fight. when i got back there were some kobolds there throwing bombs at the swarms, so it would appear we got back up, i put down the torches grabbed some bombs and joined in. Once they were delt with we found some tracks and headed out to track down were they were coming from.

We travelled for a day or two until we reached were we thought they were coming from, we devised a plan and then put it into action, on of the magic uses put up a wall around most of the area and then Imajica finished it of with one of his wall, with them trapped in side and when they tried to find there way out Imajica’s wall sent them to another dimension and the threat was vanquished.

The first bloom dealt with, it was indicated that there would be more. And at this stage, we have no way of determining when and where they will be.

In light of this, we spent some time having the finishing touches put on our palace and continued our transport system, either building more roads or updating the existing road to become highways.

While we were doing this, I suggested that we might help Ashularae for the remains of her family and bring them back from the dead. Before we had the chance to go, a young farm hand from Oret’s family farm came running up to him and, short of breath, spun a tale of woe and danger. With Oret’s family in danger, the only recourse was to immediately look into the issue.

Imajica was able to teleport all of us to the roadside close to the farm and we were greeted by scenes of destruction. Crops ruined, nobody to be found and a wee little plant being walking up to us, happy to see us.

Imajica showed a slightly more gentle side to himself and bent to retrieve the wee creature. Unfortunately it took that as an opportunity to bite the Mage, which in turn seemed to summon a veritable horde of the things.

It quickly became obvious that mele weapons were not going to suffice, so I focused my efforts on ensuring Io survived the incoming friendly fire (in every sense of the word). Both Imajica and Khan unleashed some impressive pyrotechnics, but I will be more than happy to watch from afar next time instead of standing at the epicentre.

Once the world had stopped burning, we were introduced to our apparent rescuers. The self styled Kob Squad were duly thanked by their King with the promise of more rewards for their help.

The trail of destruction was not difficult to follow for those with the skill. I relied on those with said skills as tracking is still not something I have become proficient in.

I pushed us hard, not wanting others to suffer (only after being assured that Oret’s family was only a little worse for wear). It became a long trek, and many were the claims of discomfort. Even I needed to rest after walking all day and night.

We did find our quarry the next day, but to our horror, there were more than we felt we could reasonably handle. Other plans were hatched and between Io, Imajica and Khan, the evil sprites were corralled, covered in magical darkness and sent to another plane.

Another bloom taken care of, but nothing lingered this time as my sword, Briar, didn’t gain any new properties like the last bloom.

It sounds as though the research we are getting Imajica’s assistants to do may become very valuable in terms of finding a way to stop these blooms or finding a way to the Thousand Cuts plane.

They are getting very powerfull.

After stopping the “bloom” we all went back to our capital and spent a week making sure it was running smoothly.
The pally had made a pact with the tiefling to go and see what he could do about her family. We were going to go the next day when a small farm hand from the monks farm came rushing up to him.
Is Timmy trapped in a well again? The young boy was out of breath as he had run a considerable distance. The farm was being attacked by ….. Sticks…..
The druid came up with a few ideas on what it could be and it was the monks farm so we had better go and sort it out.

A bamph her and bamph there and we were just out side the monks farm. A quick look and a four inch living stick thing with leaves for hair walked up to Imajica, I got my sword out cause picking this small thing up was a bad idea. If they were easy to get rid of the farm folk would have done so.
As soon as he had picked it up it bit him on the arm and it looked painful. It let out a screech and man did they come running. There were hundreds of them. The druid put up a wall of flames, that scorched the little bastardos. but they kept coming.
They were swarming all over us screeching and biting. I was no good my sword could only take a few out at a time so i pulled out my flask of fire and burnt them too.
With every bite a felt my strength being sapped away i had to get out of there. I herd some strange voices from the other side of the flames, they seamed to be enjoying themselves.
Just as i was about to go Imajica exploded into flames with no warning man did it hurt. Had he changed sides? did we do something to slight him? and with no warning again he exploded once more to the detriment of my life force.
Thankfully the druid said get out or this will hurt you, so I joined the monk and four Kobolds on the outside of the flames in a fun game of chuck bombs at the sticks. and it was over. A few of us were a little worse for ware and not just because of the sticks.

We decided to follow the tracks the sticks had made to see where they came from… it was a long walk and the pally was most insistent on walking through the night. Finally we rested and not to far away was the source of the little buggers.
This time there were many many more. I gulped as if we tried to tackle them like we did the others Imajica would kill us all. ( I think I now know why you hardly see any very powerful magic users around they all get too powerful and are put down)
A plan was made and magical walls constructed and they all were sent to a new plane of existence I am told. ( I seam to just told this is what has happened a lot now)
No swans around so I am not sure if this was a Bloom incident or just a freak occurrence.

So we get an emergency message about a giant whirlpool and bad water in lake Drelav. Off we go thanks to Imagicas help the trip is quick. Sure enough it looks like a giant Ferguson out there.

A quick recon and I see 3 Water elementals causing all the grief. A bit of a fight later and they are dispatched. The giant flush slowly diminishes and problem solved. We now need to get to the bottom of what caused it. It appears to be some link to the primal plane. We did find another useful man that I think we can make use of. Raife is his name. Bit of a swordsman from the looks.

Durz is his own team

Our B Team of explorers Ekho, Andromeda, Durz, Evindra and Jubilost came across a whirlpool in the lake at Drelave so decided to investigate, the whirlpool was massive and it had black swans in it which would fly away and land back in the lake once they got to close to the center. The team were attack by a water elemental in the shape of a swan, once they had taken care of the water elemental they sent a message to us to come and take a look so we gathered and Imajica teleported us there.

We were meet by some of the team in the Tavern and Durz told us of his heroic tales and conquest of many women, it was good to see Durz again i have missed his stories of his heroicness, a couple of them went for a wonder around the lake to see if they could find anything that may help. Once the hellos were done with and Durz had passed out on the floor we went to investigate the whirlpool in the lake, Khan flew out to look at the center while the rest of us stayed on the banks when 3 water elemental’s appeared in the shape of swans. Io froze one in place, Roche flew out and started attacking one while Imajica sent the other one into a maze. Khan pointed his finger at the one Roche was fighting and inflicted major damage and then Roche finished it off, standing on the bank getting impatient because i couldn’t hit anything i decided to Abundant Step on to the one that was frozen and flurry and once that one went down we prepared for the last one to appear from his maze, and when it appeared it was dealt with swiftly.

Once the last water elemental had been vanquish the black swan flew off and disappeared and one swan that had 3 arrows in it had washed up on the banks dead, there was some kind of essence in it so Roche place his new sword apon it and what ever was in the swan transferred to his sword making it more powerful, the whirlpool started to shrink also.

Some time has passed since we annexed Pitax. The Kingdom appears to be growing steadily and shows little sign of the turmoil that has forced upheavals previously. This can only mean one of two things. Either we have finally reached that vital stage of growth, stability and peace we all crave, or another catastrophe is due.

An unusual messenger from our away team of trusted explorers, in the form of a small animal, requested our aid over at a Fort Drelev by Lake Hooktongue. With little else to go on, Imajica gathered the party and teleported us to the required destination.

We managed to arrive at a tavern, only to be greeted by Durz, who, by his standards, was only slightly inebriated. He introduced us to a gentleman, who had to re- introduce himself as Rafe due to Durz inability to speak a current known language.

The long and short of things was that the fey realm was starting to break through to our world via something called “blooms” and these could take all sorts of forms. They were also, typically dangerous, as evidenced by the large water elemental in the form of a swan that emerged from the whirlpool.

Since the whirlpool was still there, Roche strode over to the lake, knowing that this event was fey in origin, and thrust his fey sword into the waters, hoping for a response.

He got a response.

Three gigantic swan shaped water elemental surfaced and sped to attack Iomedaes champion. The battle lasted seconds…Io and Imajica each rendered an elemental helpless in some for or another and the remaining one was cut down quickly.

The longest part of the battle was waiting for the powerful spell Imajica placed on an elemental to wear off so it could be destroyed.

Once they were destroyed, the lake quickly returned to normal, but there was a corpse of a swan, emanating power still for some reason. As Roche got close to it, Evindra informed him that these were conduits for the fey power and they could also increase the power of his sword.

As she explained this fact, the sword absorbed some of the power and seemed to change, becoming cold iron.

Roche looked at the sword in awe and turned to the rest of the party to show them.

Durz looked over the lake and stared at the whirlpool. It was growing bigger as he watched. He hefted a rock and sent it skimming out into the whirlpool.

“QUICK! GET ME ALEANDWOMEN!”

Durz threw coins at the nearest woman and turned away, knowing that the clearly awestruck damsel’s expression was one of adulation at seeing her hero, Durz, in the flesh. In fact, a flesh he was happy to show her more of…

…where the hells was his beer?

He turned and found the woman still standing there. Clearly she felt she was worth more money. Durz tilted his head. She might be if he had enough to drink.

“FINE, TAKEMOREMONEY.”

He thrust several more coins into her hands and got ready to enjoy both women and ale in front of this spectacular water feature. He was sure it hadn’t been here last time. Obviously his magnetic charisma drove the people of this village…what the devil was this place called again…to create this whirlpool in his honour.

Then the shawl clad vixen (how the hells was he supposed to remember her name while she wore that?!) decided a dip in the lake was in order, but she soon looked troubled.

“FAIRWENCH! I SHALLSAVEYOU!”

Durz leapt into the water, armour and all, only to find her walking out unharmed. Following her however, was a huge watery looking swan. Those other little people who followed Durz to bask in his glory and adventures suddenly stepped towards the lake.

“NEVERFEARFRIENDS, I HAVETHISUNDERCONTROL!”

He felt the righteous rage build inside as this huge watery pheasant denied him time with his beer and woman, and that same rage increased his size as he grew larger and larger until he was almost twice his normal height.

Swinging his mighty blade, he cleft large swaths of water from the thing. It was unable to survive the mighty barbarians rage long and disapated back to where it came.

Clearly the battle was won and the town had summoned a huge earth elemental in Durz’s honour as it rushed into the village and returned with the beer and woman he had been bellowing for.

For some reason, the tea-cup sized human that kept drawing scribbles into a note pad delighted in shooting a poor helpless swan (the real bird, the the giant watery tart Durz destroyed) with crossbow bolts. To each their own…

A small man waving a swivel stick at the birdy looked thankful to be in Durz’s presence so, Durz took him under his wing and showed him the ways of woman, ale and money at the local tavern.

Time blurred into fun (for EVERYONE) and for some reason, Durz’s old party members showed up. Standing up, he loudly greeted Imajica and in what can only be described as profound thanks on the behalf of the little elfy wizards for the heroism of Durz, he bought a round of drinks for the entire bar…

*For some reason, Durz has no recollection of any events after this moment, with one notable exception…the mighty Oret, he of the thundering mittens, arrived wearing the bear skin Durz had carefully harvested in his honour.

A Swan is not a Minotor i am told.

It was a fantastic day. Spending time with the family, no city’s plotting the downfall of our great nation, no monsters attacking, no unwanted bastards sighting unrest in our capital .. life was good.
All that changed when I received a message from my ranger protege in the B team ( our official scouting team ) He sent word from Drelave there is a massive whirlpool in the lake and a huge water elemental shaped as a swan had attacked them. please come now.

I gathered up the team and Imajica ported us to the location. We were met with the heroic tale of Durz and how he and he alone saved the world wile drinking and eating at the same time, one hand behind his back and making love to three wenches with is multi cock wile the rest of his team stayed back and cheered him on cheerleader style. Some of it I’m sure was a little exaggeration especially the “making love” Durz would never do that.

We went to see the whirlpool for our selves. After a bit of poking and prodding from our magic users we were greeted by three very large water swans hell bent on making us not alive.
The start of the fight was quite good as one was held by our cleric and Imajica said to the party “look that swan is not a Minotor” as he flung a spell at the center Swan. He chuckled to himself as he had apparently trapped the poor thing in a magical maze for ten minutes he told us later.
The King did a powerful spell to the third one, it did not look good after that. Now we had a flying pally over the water hitting the first held swan a porting monk landing in it and thrashing about a mage begrudgingly casting spells at it wile the rest of us struggled to even get close to it. The third one went down but the first one was only being chipped away at. Eventually it collapsed and we then had to wait for the maze one to reappear.
A plan was made and when it made it back from the maze we were ready and made short work of it.
As that happened all the swans that were around flew off in different directions and one turned up dead and Roche placed his new sword upon it and some sort of power went into it making it sharper more sturdy. I did not know swans did this.

Something tells me that those swans are up to no good. More trouble is on its way.

Our return to Shrike City was brisk. Teleportation is both powerful and extremely useful.

Our first port of call (after checking in at the castle) was to see our resident Nereid. With both her shawl and the mighty sword, Briar, in our possession, she was very glad to see us. Re-united with her magical shawl, she seemed to regain a measure of her knowledge of the sword as well.

The evil (and now, at least partially insane) nymph fell in love with the wrong being and was cursed by those ruled the First Realm (the realm of the fairies) to never be able to love again, and cut away that part of her soul and crafted a mystical sword from it…Briar. This explains why she is looking for it. She’s looking to get back her soul. Whether she can do anything with it remains to be seen…

The sword has a myriad of powers, but apparently, these are mostly dormant, and will be activated again by killing fae. I sincerely hope that the sword doesn’t become any more powerful than it already is. Killing fae seems almost sacrilegious for some reason.

With no other immediate leads and no other pressing business, we turned to the scouting reports we had waiting in the war room.

Plenty of land had been explored and claimed on behalf of our now large fiefdom. We are now approaching the size of any of the other kingdoms in the area.

Some armies had been seen, some wyverns and a talking mammoth.

The wyverns had destroyed a small town, decimating it, leaving no survivors. Once their source of relatively easy food disappeared, they flew off, dispersing as they did so.

Two other armies were of more concern however. A large giant cavalry, riding captured mammoths and a gigantic army of barbarians loomed at the edges of our kingdom. Imajica had the bright idea to send the two armies off to fight against each other (since they appeared to hate the other anyway). However, he decided for some reason to send them off to fight each other, but not to the same place.

An unusual tactic and one that I fervently hope doesn’t cost us in the long term.

Once they had been dealt with, an ancient, talking mammoth was next on the list to investigate. It seemed that the mammoth burial grounds were sacred and all the other mammoths had been kept away out of fear of some form of gigantic flying snake. Imajica assured me that it was called (to be filled in when I can remember what the creature is).

We knew where it resided as the mammoth was able to tell us that much. With little other information to go on, we simply prepared as best we could with blessings from Iomedae, nature and arcane as well.

A gigantic snake, wingless, rose from the end of a box canyon, spewing magma as it rose. For all it’s obvious size and physical intimidation, this beast proved to be little more than that, a beast. As such, our powerful combination of preparation, magical abilities and items along with years of fighting as a group meant this creature was never in with a chance. Its death spelled the end of its reign of terror and the mammoths were able to return to their sacred place.

Throughout all this, Briar has felt right on my hip. It grows more comfortable each day, and the investment in a couple of magical items to help utilize it more efficiently have paid dividends.

The obvious threats Elklund now taken care of, I turned my attention back to our newly acquired city, Pitax. Returning there, I intended to set up some manner of way we could maintain control while leaving it essentially to run itself.

One name stuck out to me, but there was ample risk as well. Ashularae. Somehow, Imajica had found her and convinced her to return to Pitax, allowing me to offer her a role under our pay.

The role itself didn’t seem to interest her, but digging deeper, it seems that the village the wyverns destroyed was her home, and her family had still resided there. With a promise made under the eye of Iomedae to find and resurrect her family, she suddenly became significantly more appreciative of the offer and I feel that she can now be left to run things from behind the scenes.

Looks like there is trouble ahead.

After the downfall of the King of Pitax we needed to make sure the city was looked after so panic did not set in.

We decided to make the four original family’s that were in power before heads of state that answer to us. I was not part of the talks but i am told it went well.

We went back home and gave the Neriad her shall back and showed her that we have the sword Bryier.
“Owwww Fantastic now i will tell you everything i know . i could have before but now i see you with the sword its now different” Sigh

Now we know why this Nymph wants it so bad …. its part of her. you know i would want it back too if i were her. But i think she is a little crazy now thinking she is a god so it looks like there is trouble ahead.

Not really knowing what to do next we looked at the scouts reports and looked at anything interesting that they had found.
They found a few army’s, a nest of Wyrverns, and old Mammoth. They had done quite well even though having Dirz with them.

Our more talkative members tried to pit the remaining army’s against each other will some success.
This left us with time to go talk to the mammoth who could speak common .. . . not a everyday occurrence.

He told us his kind were being attacked by a type of dragon and showed us where we could find this beast.

It was a kind of Snake dragon it flew with no wings ( nothing much surprises me anymore )
Spewing out “Magmaaa” it was a terrible sight. The height of many men it did have some trouble hitting us it tried and tried to bite us with no success.
Oret put an end to the eminence creature by hopping on its back as it lifted from the ground. a few sharp smacks to the head and it fell to the ground.

Where to next ? not sure looks like we should make some plans in case this Nymph turns up looking for part of herself.

After getting into the Pitaxe kings castle it became obvious just how insane he is (was hahahahahahahaha).

We get in and have to fight legions of defenders because we decided to go in a service entrance which was highly guarded (EVEN AT NIGHT!!!!!) yet the main doors had no guards go figure.

After some brilliant controlling of the fight we managed to rid ourselves of the troublesome guards and search the castle. We finally found the king after going through hundreds of thousands of doors and dispatched him and his pet Naga.

Its Oret

I had had enough of waiting at the back. The spell users were making it less than ideal to go and stand toe to toe with the ogers so i went to see if i could strike them from behind.

After a bit of walking and going through MORE doors i managed to find another way into the hall where the enemy were fighting.
There were also many more guards. Thinking it would be foolish to charge at them i decided to snip them with my crossbow.
But before i could let one bolt loose they all surrendered.

After a little chat they showed us a secret door and said that where the king goes for the night.

The floor plan to this place is insane we were greeted with a plethora of doors.

There were doors leading in every direction. The King ( ours ) decided to clear the main floor before venturing down however this did not stop him taking a detour up a flight of stairs at his first possible chance ( yes i smell hypocrisy upon you sir ) we were then attacked by a nasty looking cat thing. Apparently it was nasty but our mage took one look at this nasty cat thing and decided to turn it into a sheep….. A SHEEP and what is worse or better depending on how you look at it the nasty cat thing now thinks she is a Sheep.

I do fear this is not the last we will see of this now Sheep.

Eventually we went down one of the stairwells only to find the king and his pet naga.
I let out some inspiring words to the party to make them hit any target with precise accuracy hopeing to end this fight quick.

He had spent nearly all the kingdoms money on himself and whatever he was after.
His last words were “she did not come for me” we surmise it is the Fey lady that is after the sword. The sword we now have it was in a secret area of his room.

Now i think we need to appoint the old family’s leadership rolls under our command of Pitax at least until we know what and how we are going to deal with this Fey creature that has caused so much grief.

And i need to know if it is her that has been impersonating me and my family and what really happened to my farther.

With little to recommend staying in the same place, I flew over to the Ogre Mage to ensure that it couldn’t simply keep casting spells at us and harming the rest of my friends.

I’m glad I was flying however, as Khan decided to turn the ground beneath me into a hot pool of tar, trapping everybody in the next room in the black, sticky, foul smelling stuff. The Ogre Mage wore more blows from my sword as I called on Iomedae to assist in ending the evil creatures life.

Between my sword, the burning tar and the insane, blind troll attacking as well, we broke the Ogre Mage’s morale and it fled somehow, simply disappearing somewhere before my very eyes.

Turning and looking into what could only be the opulent throne room, there was a large number of Pitax guards looking concerned as I flew towards them.

“Stand down and you’ll live.”

It turns out Imajica had no desire to waste more of his precious arcane energy on mere guards. I flew towards them swinging my sword at the same time, and as I arrived, the whole group of them dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. Imajica clearly has a way with words…

The guards were not able to tell us where the King had gone, but one of them was able to give us the vague direction of a possible secret door.

What followed was a frustrating search through more doors, followed by more doors, frequently hidden behind more secret doors.Our moment of concern showed its face in the upstairs library. While searching through yet more doors (this whole palace needs to be razed to the ground and rebuilt…), Khan felt the unmistakable feeling of somebody watching him and called out.

Weapons ever at the ready in a hostile environment, we turned, looking for the threat. When nothing was forthcoming, it was only Learions clear headed battle training that allowed us to act without being surprised.

Khan was able to identify the creature as a weretiger, even as her blades were finding their way through his armour and into his kidneys.

“More like were…sheep!”

There was an odd mumble from Imajica as his arcane powers came to the fore again, and suddenly, in the place of a menacing humanoid tiger, a sheep stood in her place…

The suprise was total from most of us, except Imajica, who simply laughed in the face of our former enemy.

What we have never, as a group or individually been able to explain afterwards is where the sheep got to. She simply disappeared, with the eerie feeling that our deaths had been fortold…by sheep…

Many more doors and even a few more secret doors were found, but eventually, we found a way down, which Learion swore was the way to go, and for once in the last several hours of searching, Khan and he agreed on a direction.

Down the stairs we marched, with Oret confirming that there was likely the King behind the very door we discovered, along with an unknown female.

With a few seconds to prepare, Io called upon the blessings of Iomedae and we burst through the door, directly into a hail of razor blades being fired from the strange staff King Castruccio Irovetti had been carrying around.

His female companion was some form of snake woman that I had not seen before. She immediately started casting spells and therefore became public enemy number one for everybody except Learion, who continued to focus ALL of his attention (and any of ours he could command) on Irovetti.

The snake woman was quick to go down under the combined fire of everybody in he party, but when Oret attempted to grapple with the King, he simply disappeared. Horrow that he might escape yet again, we frantically looked for any sign of him.

Thankfully, he was as keen to kill us are we were him, and he called us out from beyond the ornate drapes between us and the rest of the room the King inhabited.

A large, natural cavern with a large watery section was found, and the king was waiting for us.more spells led to Oret attempting to grapple the King again, although this time, the King was blind. Irovetti teleported again, past the wall of fire that had been set up behind him into a small semblance of freedom.

He rummaged around in his belongings for something, fished out a scroll, unrolled it and stopped momentarily as he cursed, unable to read it through the magical blindness. A very short time later, the evil King was dead, Iomedae’s blessing thankfully providing the means to defeat him.

Plenty of chests littered this area. It was clearly the treasury. The chests were all empty, Irovetti having bankrupted his kingdom for his own pleasures. We were able to find a final secret door that led into a watery area.

Floating in here was a large piece of cloth, in which, wrapped a fantastic sword. The cloth was identified as our Nereids shawl. The sword? this appeared to be the very sword the Nereid was trying to protect.

With nobody else keen to carry it, I slung it on my hip. It was strange, but it really felt like it belonged there. I think more time will be needed to find out what this sword is capable of.

Of course, the back up plan was turning into a humming bird and then squeaking out orders, but it was effective none-the-less as he appeared near the back of the corridor I was currently facing off with the marauding guards in.

With my blade now insubstantial, the armour of the men in front of me was suddenly worthless to them as I cleft my way through them. Learion and I took turns thrusting, parrying and riposting (on in Learions case, simply swinging his large sword mightily), rending the life from Villamor Koth, although a lucky blow from my sword hamstrung the man before he could flee from the battle like the coward he so obviously was.

The room beyond was filled with a sparkly cloud that made sight impossible (Khan’s influence on the battle I’m told), so I stumbled forward and eventually we found the last of the guards, silencing him forever.

What followed was an exhaustive search of what felt like hundreds of doors. Imajica found one that was the most important. Well, in this case, it was actually a curtain. Unfortunately, I was in another room initially, but leaving Oret and Learion to dispatch the guards that stumbled upon us (I pity those guards) I made my way to where Imajica had been.

I arrived to find a shape, elf-shaped no less, made entirely of glittering golden flecks. Some form of new magical defence I would assume.

In front of him was two trolls, heavily armoured and looking threatening. Imajica cast another spell I’ve not seen and the front troll simply dropped away into a pit. The horrific crunching noises suggested it wasn’t simply a flat bottom to the pit.

An idea crossed my mind and I taunted the other troll towards my. Apparently, calling their mother Steve offends them. However, this did the trick as the other troll lumbered towards me, intent on crushing my skull. Instead, it slipped and landed in the pit directly on top of the other troll. Even in the midst of battle, this was an amusing sight.

While the noise of combat from Learion and Oret hit its crescendo, our troubles felt like they were only beginning. From across the room, another curtain flung open and a veritable horde of people and trolls waited.

The pit holding two of the trolls disappeared and they found themselves on the floor in front of us. Magic started getting thrown around like I’ve rarely seen, from both the orge (yes, apparently orges can cast spells) and Imajica, Khan and Io. In the midst of so much magical firepower, I simply tried to get in front of Imajica so that he wasn’t able to be hurt by the brutes in front of him.

I’m at a loss to explained what happened then. Colours flew, ash and brimstone erupted, trolls started disappearing, dying or simply going insane from the exposure. The sounds coming from our wizards mouth was almost evil…

The following morning arrived and as per Imajica’s preference, we teleported to the new location under the Cheese and Meat shop then.

We spent a significant amount of time discussing battle places and in particular, times to attack. We finished with attacking at night, while flying and invisible (although the discussion did make me decide to check up on our own guard rotations when I’m back home as Learion seems to think that there are less guards required at night for some reason…which mean we potentially have a lack of guards at night).

Flying over the castle led us towards what looked like the back door for the servants. The other option was a direct attack from the top and neutralising three watch towers at the same time (something we were unlikely to be successful at without setting off the alarm).

It turns out that we might as well have attacked the towers.

The room, a description that only loosely covers the area as it was really more of a murder zone, was only ten foot wide, solid walls on both side with arrow slits at regular intervals and another five foot on the other side of each wall, in which a large number of archers hid, waiting for us.

Long and short of it…Imajica and Khan provided both cover and attack with their spells, Io blessed us while Oret, Learion and I waded through any guards we could find. Of course, this immediately set off the very alarm we were trying to avoid.

A search around the surrounding area led us to believe that the architect must have been changed every few months as there was a plethora of different styles in the building, often mashed together in the same room.

A more thorough search may be required, but at this point in time, guards keep finding us and attacking. We stumbled into a smaller version of the main room in the entrance, but with only three archers in there, they were largely unable to harm us.

The biggest issue arose when Villamor Koth, our adversary from the Rushlight Tournament found us, followed by a large number of guards. The door between us slammed shut after Imajica seared through their ranks with a lightning bolt spell and Io dropped some heavenly fire on the enemy, trapping our King in the other room, by himself!

Luckily, I recognised that the door was actually an illusion and informed the others of this. Of course, when weapons sliced through the door as though it wasn’t there (which of course it wasn’t!), that also provided some clues.

I called upon Iomedae to bless my sword and it has grown insubstantial. I hope that I can get to Khan before he perishes before so many enemies.

This guy is mad

We decide to assail the palace at night after much deliberation.
We made ourselves invisible and flew to the palace and quickly decided the roof was a no go due to the three guard towers.
We would have had to take them out at the same time as not to raise the alarm.
There were two entrances one was the main entrance and the second was the tradesman entrance. We went for the latter.

Still invisible the mage unlocked the door with one of his spells and we ventured inside only to be greeted by a small army of men in the walls with arrow slits.
Still invisible one of us took the opportunity to surprise the men in the walls and attacked with spells.
more spells affecting the air , ground , our vision were hurled around impeding their and our movment.
I do not think they know how much they distract me from my craft when they do that.
A minute or so later the alarm had obviously been raised as we quickly tryed to move through the rooms, that by the way look like a mish mash of buildings plastered togeathet by a blind child – we must be in the right place.
Next hallway and again guards in the walls shooting at us.
Is this whole place lined with people? This guy is a mad man.

Again wall guards taken care of – poor guys looks like there is no way in or out for them, cause I’m sure with the party members we have and their amazing abbility to spot the tiniest imperfections they would have spotted any secret openings, if not I would like the maker of secret openings if any to come and do our palace.

We looked in a few more doors then to have the far doors at the end of the corridor to fling open and another small army of men and Pitix"s own champion stand there and declare war upon us. . . Stupid people they should lower their weapons and or fight with us. They are working for a Man that became King on a game of cards,
oh well we raise our weapons and enter into glorious combat.

With the plan finally decided upon, Imajica made his way to Pitax. When he return he informed us on what had transpired, he had organized us a ship that was dock in the harbor to hide out on. We teleported to the ship, which got us inside Pitax without any hassles, the captain of the ship had also given Imajica a bit of a lead, we needed to follow the smell of cheese, not sure what that meant but at least it was something and i do like cheese so if it turns out to be a dead end hopeful i can get some cheese.

So with our disguises on Roche used his new womanly attributes to get us some info from some of the locals, as we headed on wards we ran into some patrolling guards who informed us that there was a curfew in affect and again Roche managed to sway the guards that he… wait, she really need some cheese and that nothing was going to stand in her way. The guards gave us a bit of leniency and we carried on, with the guards following, guessing they were just keeping an eye on us. The cheese shop was closed but that did not deter Roche and off she went again ( this is one woman i wouldn’t want to mess with) until the owner was awoken from slumber and came down to see what was going on.

With the message whispered in the owners ear, we were let in and shown a room that was used for meetings, and we decided that once we got back to the ship we would teleport back here to discuss our next plan of attack. With our purchase of cheese, some for the guards to show a little gratitude, we made our way back to the ship.

It all seemed so simple. We teleport as close to Pitax as possible, use a hat of disguise to make our way as close to the palace as possible, assault the king, end the threat to our kingdom and be done.

Instead, Imajica made the trip himself, did some scouting (he appears to have gained new spells or skills that he has not previously utilised) of his own. as there was nobody else with him, it was with interest that the rest of us waited for him to return.

He came back bearing some news. He had secured some form of lodging in the harbour with a friendly sea captain, paying for the use of his ship while it was in dock. And there was a slightly unusual addition to that request. One of his so-called travelling companions was to be a woman.

I was unsure why this particular detail was require, other than to cause somebody some discomfort. As it turned out, it was to be MY discomfort as I needed to use my hat of disguise to become a woman.

Once we teleported directly into the ship (neatly getting us inside Pitax, the captain informed Imajica that we should follow the smell of cheese in the city. With no other leads (as the original plan appeared to have been veto’d somehow without my knowing), we made our way into town to find this cheese.

I used my new found feminine wiles to coerce some information out of the local populace. By the time we got the information we needed, dark had fallen and the bells tolled midnight. Again, with little patience to hang around when not required, I immediately starting making my way (dragging the rest of the group in my wake)) towards our destination.

We were held up briefly by the local constabulary (who also helped direct us…maybe being a woman has some additional benefits?) and they then followed us to ensure we were actually going where we said we were.

We were also informed that there was a curfew in effect, and we were in breach of it. Luckily , the guards were easily convinced to leave us alone. The trip towards the cheese and meat shop also took us towards the palace, so at least we also learnt our targets location.

The shop was well closed by midnight, but some lusty calls got us inside, along with the whispered message about following the smell of cheese. A room was made available to us as we were friends of those against the crown (in a manner of speaking), so a decision was made to teleport to this room once we got back to the ship. This would throw off any potential pursuit.

A purchase was made to ensure that the guards were satisfied that we actually bought something. I also made my way over to the guards and shared some of the cheese…it never hurts to thank people…

So all that remains is to wait for Imajica to be in position to teleport us to our secret room, from which we can hopefully make our assault on the King.

How a simple plan windes up going to get cheese

1: Get disguise hats for everyone
2: Make a wand of Invisibility
3: Wait till night, put hats on, drink pots, Land on Palace.
4: Find window or place to enter and get as close to King as we could before fighting.

What we ended up doing.

The mage wanted to sight see before we infiltrated Pitax. So he decided to teleport to close to the city and get inside somehow and peruse at his own leisure .

The next day he arrives back home and tells us he has managed to get a boat to stay in.
This at least was a good thing.
We now were in the city and ….. well that’s it.BUT he had told the captain of the ship that some of us were Female’s….. this posed a problem as we are not.
Rock paper scissors – the pally was now a lovely plump lass.

The rest of the plan could have stayed the same….. BUT he was told to follow the smell of cheese for some help.

Later on than evening we decided to roam the city to be oggled by everyone in sight increasing our chance of being discovered and loosing the chance of any surprise.
This made me very anxious and was trying my best to act casual…… this all ended when we spent four hours questioning people only to find at midnight where the cheese place was – a very normal act i’m sure.

We headed towards the cheese place and were confronted by some of the city guard asking why we were breaking curfew, and were told that one of us the Female Pally ( HEEHEE ) wanted some cheese. Now these guys must have been tired because its midnight and the stores are closed and why does it take six people to get cheese??

Anyway they let us go but kept a close eye on us .

We woke up the neighborhood trying to get into the Cheese and Meat shop and were greeted by a bury eyed looking lady wondering what the hell was happening and it took a few seconds before she realized what we were after.
She showed us in and took us to a secure basement turns out it is used for secret meetings for people that she dislike’s. Lets just hope the same people we dislike she dislike’s

We decide to gather some cheese and give the kind guards a slice or two then head back to the ship.
We plan to teleport back to the secret basement room and start the search for the king the next evening.

While we were out exploring we receive word from the Centaurs that our Kingdom was about to come under attack. With a quick discussion, we all teleport back to Shrike City except for Roche, who would be joining us momentarily. Learion and I stayed to organize our armies while the magic uses went to Varnhold to help defend, and after Imajica had rested he went back to get Roche.

We shall defend our Kingdom, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight them at the walls, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight them in the mountains; we shall never surrender.

With troops on both sides in position and ready to attack, the time had finally come to show these bastards who they were messing with. We took care of there air support first and then move onto the trolls, and with them down the Pitax army was next, which we soon had retreating back to the mountain pass. After regrouping they came at us again, which was a ballsy move but this time we broke them and they fled in all directions.

With the invasion over and us victorious it was time to attend to the wounded and then pay respects to the fallen and send them off in a manner in which they deserved. Now it was time to devise a plan to clear our names and end this once and for all.

Our quest to find the shawl and gather more information on the mystical fae sword Briar came to an abrupt end.

A messenger bird came to us from the centaurs. They utilised a magical item we gave them some years back and what a time to use it! Varnhold was under attack from a large army, consisting of a huge contingent of Pitax men, a unit of Wyverns and a unit of Trolls.

Our tower in the mountains served its purpose, but the men died to send the the message of invasion. We owe them a debt that shall be difficult to repay.

Imajica was able to teleport Khan, himself, Io, Oret and Learion to Shrike City, leaving Oret and Learion to marshal the armies of Elklund, while the remainder were teleported to Varnhold to assist in defending the township.

Thankfully Learion had been very insistent on setting up defensive perimeters around every settlement in our kingdom, and in the end, these very walls were crucial to the defense of our realm.

Once Imajica had rested for a day, he teleported back to Fort Drelev where I was waiting and immediately took me back to Varnhold, where I was humbled by the dedication shown not only by our own subjects, but by our allies, the centaurs, and even a group of treants!

The centaurs had mobilised and were already in the town, along with the aforementioned group of treants. Perhaps having a druid for king pays dividends in certain times of strife? All of the magic users we sent to the town performed heroic feats of magic, increasing our already substantial defenses and boosting the armies morale.

When the armies attacked, they were beaten back over and over. We focused on the Wyverns initally since they could simply fly over the walls and give us considerable trouble. Once they were dealt with, the Trolls were next. Large, powerful and regenerating troops at the walls didn’t seem like a prudent tactic.

The Trolls were also destroyed, but somehow one survived and some fast talking from Imajica saw they turn coat. I’m sincerely hoping they are left to go their own way once the battle is done.

Two units destroyed and the army of Pitax starting to take a beating, the men turned and withdrew, heading to the very pass they spewed forth from.

We followed them at a safe distance, sure in the knowledge that by this time, Learion and Oret had blocked the other side of the path with our main armies, trapping the Pitax legion in between.

With no hope of holding out, they attacked en mass. To their doom. Well defended, and flush from crushing the armies at their very gates, the armies of Elklund were decisively victorious, causing the invaders to break apart like the sea over rocks and flee into the mountains or be taken captive.

Once the invasion was over, Io and Khan spent some time with the centaurs, healing their wounds as best they were able. In the battles, the only people to have casualties were the centaurs. They were the most dangerous and unfortunately that made them a target. For defending our kingdom and honouring our alliance with honour, we owe them more than any simple debt. Our agreement to leave their lands and forge an alliance was both wise and fruitful.

After discussing this more at length, it was decided that these invaders had to have been mobilised before the Rushlight Tournament, meaning that the feeble excuse given to declare war was a sham.

Learion’s plan was to assault the very King of Pitax himself. If we can get to him, potentially, we can end this war before it becomes even larger. This means that we shore up our kingdoms defenses and make our own way into Pitax…

Walls are good MKay

So we start of search for the Neriads cloth thing and the sword named Briaer or something, slowly making our way to Pitax.

Three days pass and we get a magical little bird come to us ( this was the bird we gave to the Centaurs a wile ago ).

Our Fort is under attack !

We mobilize a plan, all the magic users will teleport to the fort and on the way drop off The Monk and myself . then teleport to the Fort and start the defense of our little city.

The Pally is left to wait for a day or so till the Mage can comeback and pick him up.

I ready our army’s at our capital and march them to the City under attack, this should take three days to arrive.
Hopefully the rest can hold off the advance till we arrive.

I am told that on the second day they attacked.
Thankfully a group of friendly Tree-Ents were wandering on by and lent a help full hand to take up arms ( or huge rocks ) against our Pitax foe’s. Possibly thanks to our Druid King being there.

There were Trolls, Wyvern’s and a army of men Two thousand strong. Looking to destroy one of our founding settlements.

I never made it to that battle but I am told the gods were with us that day and our little force and a very help full group of trees and legendary Centaurs laid waste to the invaders.
With the Army of men the only ones left standing they broke formation and retreaded the way they came for the night.
Little did they know the rest of the party and our main Army was coming up behind them – they were trapped.

We decided to hold them in the pass until they surrendered, but this was not to be the case. They attacked so we came at them from both sides. It was a total victory on our part with the invaders from Pitax fleeing in every direction.
Some Centaurs were unfortunately lost in the encounter, we owe them a dept of gratitude.

So we have framed for murder. Lerian with help from a “friend” managed to aid us in our escape. I spent time making sure all was well back at Shrike City while the others went galavanting looking for Io. We have met up again and are now searching for a magic sword that some watery tart lost along with her shawl. Interesting developments Pitax have skirting our kingdom and look to be launching an attack on another kingdom. WTF??? I will keep you informed

The situation went downhill rather quickly. As a law abiding paladin of holy Iomedae, I asked whether we would be subject to a fair trial. Taking a fellow ruler on their word, I believed the King of Pitax when he informed us that he would preside over the trial.

That being the case, I drew my sword, reversed it and tried to find a guard to hand it over to. While there were dozens in attendance, actually finding one to take my sword proved troublesome…so I simply stood there, sword blade in my hand waiting for a guard to take the weapon, while our erstwhile King remained seated, unfazed and continued drinking.

Oret and Imajica looked troubled when they were asked to give themselves up and subject themselves to manacles. It was at this point that I suggested that all this was on the word of a single being, so surely if we were to treated in this manner, surely our accuser should be as well?

Suffice to say, that is one dwarf we are unlikely to friendly with any time soon.

Learion and Grigori of all people turned up. How these two joined forces was beyond my ken, but it certainly didn’t bode well for Learion’s side of the story if he was in cahoots with a known and reviled activist.

With little option, as Learion had convinced the others to flee (he and I have very strongly similar world views, so his suggestion did carry some extra weight) the opportunity to talk through the situation and Grigori cast a phantasm that covered our tracks as Imajica teleported us to safety. Our King, Khan, bravely opted to remain behind as Imajica was unable to teleport us all with his spell, as Khan could transform into a flying creature and make his way home that way.

Learion informed us he apparently saw his father, aged and alive at the tournament. And that there is apparently a dead ringer of him around, acting as Learion himself. This presents numerous problems. Once home, I did some cursory investigations into any unusual actions our Learion impostor may have made, but alas, this proved to be a dead end. This imposter appears to be acting on a VERY long scale, only making a very few select acts, but they seem to be impacting on us fairly significantly.

With little else in the way of plans, we were surpised to have a message from Andromeda about Io. With my son potentially in trouble, we all made haste to his last known location.

This is the point where the two earlier log entries take place. Refer to those to fill in the missing information.

Wanting to speak to somebody who was at the scene of the crime, Io was able to cast speak with dead and we chose the very priest who was responsible for the atrocity.

This plan was interrupted by two massive shambling mounds. Having fought them before allowed us to smoothly attack them as a well oiled unit. Magic was flung, fists pumped, swords swung and the debris settled. One of the massive creatures had launched a devastating attack on Learion, but fortunately I was able to intercept it. Other than that, the fight was efficiently dealt with.

On to the plan at hand. Cryptic, short and ultimately of limited help, we were able to find out that it was not the sword that drove the priest mad, but a spell that caused his actions. Who and why still remained to be found.

The nereid that Learion freed was able to give us more information. She had been guarding the sword for centuries and it was hidden at the bottom of the pool beneath the monastery (for some reason, I seem to want to say monkery…bizarre) , and it was this that gave the monks alcohol the distinctive delicious taste.

The sword has power few can fathom, but apparently it is capable of slicing a piece of the world and making it part of the fey realm. And for this, it seems to be of utmost interest to a particularly notable nymph.

This nymph had lost station and was apparently looking to claw her way back up the fey political landscape, and the sword was integral in her plans. It has now gone missing, along with the nereid’s shawl. Both of these items appear to have been picked up by Pitax about fifteen years ago after the massacre.

No immediate options presented themselves, so the group is going to work our way through the unexplored areas between the monastery and Pitax and see if inspiration strikes us.

How did we not see this coming?

So i have this sword with my family crest on it covered in blood after following my father who was not a ghost ( should have been my first clue ).
I took it back to our lodging cleaned it up, while doing so i noticed my guards were not at their posts (must have a word with them later).
Hid the sword and the cloth i used to clean it with and was about to go back to the feast when an old “friend” turned up.

I recognized him immediately this was the man trying to tear our kingdom apart a few years back through lies and deceit.
We had locked him away in our secure holding cell at the time ( a very secure tent ) and he had escaped.
He told me that the party was in trouble in the feast hall and were going to be arrested for the death of the female competitor of Pitax ( no great loss i thought since she knew all the bad things that happened to our kingdom and claimed responsibility ).

It then dawned on me about the sword so i picked it up and the cloth and then assembled all my gear ready to help my team.
I asked the man why was he helping me and he said it was repayment for all those years ago when i released him from our prison tent.
I kept my mouth closed as there was no way i released him.
He sounded very genuine so there must be someone posing as ME, and has done so for a long time, maybe even has been posing as my father to lead me to the sword.

We come up with a plan to free the rest of the team not a great plan but a plan.
I walked on in and told them to release my friends and we did not murder whoever was murdered. Our pally was ready to hand himself over to the authorities for a fair trial but we had been framed and people looking like me walking around there was no fair trial to be had here.

Our ex prisoner made a convincing illusion of us escaping in a cloud of smoke wile our mage teleported us to our lodging to grab our gear and then again teleported us back home.

I informed the party that we have has someone playing a long game against us for what ever reason.
Our pally went around the city asking if I had made any strange requests.
Trying to see if he could see if this imposter had done anything else …. good idea but i did notice he only asked about me and no one else. ( i will be making my own investigations into the other party members with the pally first ).

We then went on the save Io trip, but i forgot to say that we found the dead priest grave after a battle with some shambling mounds, we communed with the dead and only found out that it was not the sword that made him go mad it was a spell.

We know that the sword and possibly the Neriads shall was taken to Pitax.

We know the guy that tried to destroy our city escaped with help from some one looking like me and then he helped save us in Pitax and now gave all our information to the people at the Abby to help them kill us, maybe he too has been impersonated.

We know that the Fey world is involved in all of this and a nasty Nymph is looking to get the sword and use it on our plane of existence.

I personally think she has done something to the King of Pitax.
But i can not figure out why she would turn Pitax against us – if i were to look at it as a tactical point she or whoever it is is turning us all against each other to dwindle our numbers to make it easier for them to attack and join our part of the world into theirs.

With the archery event up first it was time for Imajica to shine, and shine he did, the strategy he had paid off and he won the event. I did spot someone cheating and with the help of Roche we managed to convince the judge to check the his arrows and he was kick out of the event.

Up next was Lerian the lumberjack (and he’s ok) in the log cutting event, and again the strategy he had saw or more chop his way to another win, so with 2 events down it put us in a good position. Unfortunately Roche did not do well in his events which was the boasting and the drunken joust but we did manage to catch another cheat in the boasting event, and it all came down to last years champ of the Jousting event to win the event and have Pitax take the lead and win outright. But his opponent got the better of him and that gave us the outright win, not bad for our first time at the event.

As we sat around the fire eating, drinking and being merry Lerian excuses himself, a few moments later it all came to a sudden holt when the king of Pitax came forth and accused us of murdering a competitor from the boasting event.

So I have been doing a lot of looking and watching and drinking. Unable to take part in any of the events due to them involving skills either not becoming of my status or that I have not tried before. Myself and Oret managed to feret out a couple of cheats in a couple of events. We did very well and ended up champions of the games.

The Pitax King is obviously a very materialistic person and likes to display his lavish art works, etc. He has a menagerie of animals that should either be roaming free or destroyed for be abominations to nature. However I held my tongue on the matter.

At the victory Banquet we have just been accused of killing one of the Pitax champions. Lerian does not appear to be with us. This could get interesting….

The day prior to the Rushlight Tournament led to some interesting times.

The first stop in our little excursion led us towards the art exhibition. Overhearing a discussion between Ashularae and another group of visitors did little to impart any real knowledge, so we made our way through the gallery. Not being a lover of art in any form, it was difficult to find something to hold my attention (I would not have gone at all had there not been a fairly insistent nudge from what must have been Iomedae).

Wandering aimlessly through the paintings I stumbled across a picture that looked strikingly like young Io, shortly after I found him in the village all those years ago. A quick discussion with Ashularae informed us that the King had lost a young son many years ago, and the timing seems strangely co-incidental. I requested an immediate audience with the King.

In the mean time, we had a look around the menagerie. While stocked full of beasts of renown and mystique, I found the display somewhat garish. They really should either be free, or destroyed if they are causing trouble. To parade them around like a trophy felt as though it diminished all involved.

I was also able to send a message via bird to Andromeda regarding what I had tentatively found out about Io.

The audience was granted and it took all of my diplomatic powers to have what appeared to be an extremely painful discussion with the King. The loss of his son still seemed to upset him greatly, even after all these years. The discussion ended on a somewhat threaten note with the King vowing to have Io returned to him. Perhaps the offer of information in good faith was not my wisest course at this time.

The day done, it was time to rest for the first day of the tournament. Imajica was first in all respects. His discipline (archery) was first, he was the first to shoot (and in combination with elven skill with a bow, some magic, and a little luck) and also able to finish in first place. Elklund immediately on the leaderboard.

Learion was second, partaking in the lumber chopping discipline and his tactics and sheer strength, combined with some of the better tactics netted him first place as well! Elklund was the current clear leader.

The boasting was next, and while I’m not one prone to boasting, I do have the most skill and experience in oratory, so it was deemed best for me to step up. Sadly, a middling performance left us in third place and therefore no points were garnered, but Elklund was still in the lead.

Last was the jousting, but in this, we had nobody capable. This really left a hail mary attempt, which was me, on a horse, with a lance. Suffice to say, it went badly and I have renewed respect for those who are skilled in this discipline. While I finished last, the unexpected victory over the previous years champion from Pitax left us with the most points and we were deemed the champions! In our first ever appearance!

A feast was held and our prize was presented. Drinking followed and at some point in the night, Learion disappeared and before he came back, a great cry came up from the Kings guard, claiming a competitor had been killed.

Of course, we all leaped to our feet, intending to rush to the aid, but the cries turned against us. WE were being blamed. With guards, heavily armed and armoured, approaching us from all sides, Learion missing, the situation has become dire…

Lerian the Lumberjack

We decide to go and investigate the area and find out what we can about this King and the City known as Pitax on our free day.

The pally and I head off to the Art gallery and have a look. There are a lot of paintings of the Kings Family stretching way way back way way too far. It seams like something is very wrong here.

One painting catches the eye of Roche as it does seam to look like a very young Io standing next to the King.

Something is up with this place no one can tell me about before this guy became King and if they do its i guess it was his father and his fathers father. Nothing solid to go on yet.

We then head off to the menagerie (is for guests only) to have a look at the wonderful beasts there.

I did overhear a rumor about a very strange snakelike being that is said to have been paraded through the city by the king and is said to be held around his personal quarters, but that is only a rumor.

The pally goes off to tell the king about Io and see what comes of that ( lest just say it was an intense talk ).

The next Day the tournament begins and it starts with the archery.
Our mage Imajica starts off the day with a full 12 seconds of casting spells and then in the next 12 seconds fires off all his six arrows with only one not sticking in the mark of the far ends target, I am impressed for a mage he has done well, and so well in fact that he won that competition giving our nation 3 points.

Also we caught a cheater thanks to our observant Monk and the stern words of our pally.

The next competition was the wood chopping.
I did the best i could with the strategy that our group came up with. Thanks to the group for telling me to take off my Armour ( it did feel strange swinging an ax with no armor on )
I cleft 4 or 5 logs in twain and damaged the last, its all a blur now the heat of the competition must have got to me.
Hooray Our proud nation is victorious in another part of the tournament.
This gave us a grand total of 6 points and two other nations have 1 point each.

With two more rounds to go we were in a good spot.

The boasting was next.
Again there was cheating ( our group would never stoop so low ) and spotted again by us.
Our pally was good but not as good as two other Boasters and no points were awarded to us.
One of the Boaster got up and basically listed off all the annoying and bad things to happen to our City and said that it was all her doing.
This upset Roche and after the tournament he marched right up to the king of Pitax and demanded some sort of compensation , this did not go down to well and i am told Roche was told to leave in no uncertain terms.

Next was the Drunken Joust. Again it was our very hard to hit Pally looking very funny indeed on a horse.
Turns out that he is very easy to hit on a horse and was the first to be eliminated from the Joust.
It was down to the last two, one was Pitax and if he won Pitax would win the competition.
Luckily for us the other City won and we were Victorious.
Hopefully this shows the other nations that we are indeed here to say and deserving of their respect is a kingdom of the Bandit Nations.

At the Feast we were awarded the Magical item that was up for grabs but more importantly I saw my father at the entrance to the Feast Hall.
I immediately excused myself and went to investigate.
I did not find my father but he led me to a tree with a long sword leaning up against it.
On closer inspection I saw it had our family crest on the hilt. I picked it up and it felt slimy. I immediately placed it back down and gave it a closer look. Blood on the blade but more out of place was Blood on the handle. Fresh too.

Pitax is holding it’s annual games, in which surrounding kingdoms come together and compete for glory, and altho i’m not really into this sort of stuff it will be good for our kingdom to meet surrounding kingdoms and hopefully make some good connections.

We arrive at Pitax to a spectacular welcome and are introduced to the king of Pitax, we chat, drink and present our gift, which seems to impress the King which makes it a good start for us. We say our goodbyes to the king as he has other visitors to meet and greet. So we make our way to our lodgings checking out the other lodgings for the other visitors on the way, and prepare for the events that are being held tomorrow.

Our kingdom is finally being recognised by the other Kingdoms with an invitation to the Annual Pitax tournament of Champions. So off we travel, the usual group with the addition of my lovely wife. We are meet with the King of Pitax (he is an artdork). We have a look at our lodgings and then start talking with some of the other visitors. Low and behold I find myself face to face with (insert name here). That is a real blast from the past. It was good to have a catch up and she filled us in a bit on the events to come. Sounds like I will be watching most of it and not taking any active part.
Time for bed Quintessa is calling…

Pitax holds an annual tourney. Something that most of the border Kingdoms are invited to. This year is the first year in which Elklund appears to have made the following nations realise that we are, in fact, a legitimate nation, even if we are somewhat small in comparison to others.

The work I had put in over the preceding years must have helped build some form of good favour, and as such, we made our way to the tourney as a group, led by Khan, as always, our King.

Io was gifted a vision from our Goddess, iomedae herself, and such a divine message can not be ignored. He made the pilgrimage willingly, and I was proud to see him follow our Goddess and continue her good works.

This did leave a gap in our group as we decided to make the trip. Luckily, Khan’s marriage to the lovely Lady Quintessa Maray had resulted in a bond forming between her and the original members of the party, and she offered to go in Io’s stead. She was gladly welcomed by all.

A quiet trip resulted in a generous welcome to the outskirts of Pitax, where we were greeted by Nunzio Arpaia. On behalf of his King, he bade us welcome and invited us to sup and greet the leader of Pitax, none other than King Castruccio Irovetti himself.

The meeting was both pleasant and fairly short. Queen Quintessa is somewhat the scholar and bard of renown, and the entrance to King Castruccios tent was lined with works of art. She was able to hold her tongue however, as she later informed us of the obviously gaudy nature of most of the pieces, even if they were of financial value.

The sheer gleeful interest in art from the King allowed us to gift him with a work of art from our own vaults resulted in a very friendly meet and greet, along with breaking our fast. Smart thinking from Imajica there, as the gift was his idea.

Once bid good day, we were bade to explore our lodgings, and our guide was to be the lovely Ashularae, whom we had the pleasure of meeting twice before. She was very friendly yet again, but there did seem to be some tension between her and Learion which seemed to shorten her stay.

After investigating our lodgings carefully (it was prudent to check for traps, magical or otherwise and any other unwanted things), we made a slow trip around the small lake where all the visiting dignitaries were housed. Learion chose to remain behind, to bathe and wash off the dust from the road.

We did find most of the lodgings empty. Perhaps the visitors were enjoying other sights?

One lodging housed somebody familiar to Khan however. She was one of three representing another faction, but the short story seemed to involve he rescuing Khan from some daemon during his formative years.

From her we learned more of the tourney and taking our leave, we planned our participation in the events…

“These events follow the events in Pitax at the Rushlight Tournament – Log 2 of 2”

The isle was guarded.

A large number of Will-o-Wisps descended on Oret as he charged ahead into the ghost that was floating, menacingly, on the other side of the small bridge.

Spells started flying from all parts, but the most surprising was Imajica as he literally transformed into something else. Suddenly, his archery was potent, the arrows striking were previously, while he clearly knew how to use a bow (part of his elven heritage I understand), he was now hitting targets he would have struggled with and leaving a solid impact.

Oret focused on the ghost, but was surrounded by Will-o-Wisps. Luckily for him, Learion was able to take care of them fairly quickly. While immune to most magic, they were not impervious to large swords slicing clean through them.

I tried to take the fight to the ghost in between this. I was unfortunately unable to be particularly useful as it primarily ignored me and I had serious difficulty connecting with it. Io was able to sear it with Iomedae’s fire however, and combined with the multitude of other hits from Learion and Oret, the ghost dissipated.

A small room was found, a door cleverly hidden as a cask.

Inside was clearly the mad priest’s resting chambers, sparse as they may be. A rod and an ornate water clock were the only items of any real interest, Both indicated magic, and potentially some value, usable or financial.

Learion, however, had other ideas. Taking the water clock, he threw it violently to the ground, shattering it to pieces. From the wreckage, the water seeped together and formed a Nereid. A beautiful…and very naked…Nereid.

A spare cloak was offered to her as a way to cover herself, although she didn’t seem overly concerned. Imajica was able to tell us something of these magical creatures from another plane.

She thanked us for rescuing her, although in truth, it was Learion in a moment of possibly divine inspired clarity that was mostly responsible for her freedom. She also enquired as to a shawl. Apparently this item of clothing is magically important to her.

We had unfortunately not found such an item and suspected it had been taken back to Pitax all those years ago when the monastery was destroyed and Pitax soldiers cleaned up the mess.

Luckily, she was able to make a new shawl, but finding her original one would still be very beneficial to her. No guarantees were made, but I did promise to make an effort to search should I be in the position to do so.

Io’s quest done, as far as he and I were able to discern, the party made their way back to Shrike City.

To late for you.

We went in the cave below the abbey to find some dancing lights and a ghost of the mad priest.

The glowing lights were Willow Wisps… again and they posed no problem the the mad ghost did offer a challenge to our monk who struggled to hit him but in the end he fell … again ( I do wonder how he died though, from what i understand about ghosts is that they have some unfinished business and i have a feeling it is to do with Pitax)

I found a hidden compartment and a clock that was very cool it had flowing water and everything and it even talked to me.
It asked me to destroy it and as we know destroying things can be quite fun so i did.
And out popped a Niad. A very naked and beautiful Niad.

She had been locked away in the clock by the priest and he had taken her shall that is very very important to her and her survival.
We agree to find this shall while she starts knitting a new one if we are unsuccessful.

We ask if she could accompany us to our city where she can work in piece and maybe take up residence with our witch.

I do have many questions for he about the realm she comes from. she seams to know about the sword he mad priest was using to kill the monks and maybe what drove him crazy we will see.

All this information could have been useful a few weeks ago when we were in Pitax for the annual Bandit kingdoms tournament as we could have asked them about the mad priest and the missing shall then.

The tournament is a few days worth of fun and skill all the best of the best come from most kingdoms to show off their best and most skilled people from their little neck of the woods. Some kingdoms have not turned up must look into this.

We turned up and were taken to meet and greet the King of Pitax ( an odd choice of King – I say that knowing we too have a very odd choice of King so i know what i’m talking about – the King of the cultural center of the bandit kingdoms i expected to be carried with grace and have an aura of sophistication about him how wrong could i be.

He seams like a man out of place and with very little knowledge of ART witch stands out in the cultural center. But who am I to judge.

We break some bread with the man and offer him a gift ( picked out by our mage ) a…. lovely painting ….. not what i would have given … i would have given something very important to him, like a Great-sword but he did seam to like it and then hang it upside down, each to his own.

We then came across a old friend the teefling that i once would have taken to be my wife if she had not politely refused, but its to late for her now i am taken.
She shows us to our lodgings and then takes her leave.
I take this chance to have a lovely bath on the lake next to our bathhouse wile the other went to explore ( really i was watching our quarters to see if any people decided to enter our house wile the rest were away as it is widely known we are not accepted or liked. thankfully nothing happened).

We now must make the decisions on who will take part in the events coming up in the next few days we have archery, wood chopping, boasting, and jousting i am wanting to do the chopping something i know ill will be good at and and hopefully get the group this magic stick that is on offer for the winning kingdom.

Durz turns on Mulio, eyes wide, a furious and righteous anger forming faster than most men can take a single breath.

“YOUDARE!?!”

Mulio sighs as he nods, for about the twentieth time.

“Durz, it’s ten thirty in the morning, and I’m already having to cut your tab off. Piss off and sober up before you come back again. Hell, DON’T come back again (at least for a couple of days, your money is still good) you bloody barbarian.”

For some reason, the completely justified fury that Durz intended to unleash on Mulio’s establishment seems to fade. Durz shakes his head and squints. Turning slightly, he spy’s a city constable gingerly backing away, dropping a billy club, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“DID. YOU. HIT. ME. IN. THE. HEAD?!?”

Durz turns in fury on the poor sap, his anger growing, like the unrelenting tide. He blinks again. Turns again, only to see another city constable quickly backing away, but still brandishing his billy club.

“I WILLDESTROY….”

Another thud sounds nearby. Durz dimly gathers that by nearby, his brain is in fact telling him, this means his own skull. Strange how that sounds about four feet to his left currently. He staggered, the blows to the head doing less than the copious amounts of alcohol to his balance.

’FRIENDS. I THINK I HAVENEED OF YOURKINDSOULS. MAY I IMPOSEMYSELFUPONYOURFINEHOSPITALITYYETAGAINANDSLUMBER A WHILE IN ONE OF YOURROOMS?"

Mulio sighs.

“Thank whatever bloody God is listening…Constables, if you would be so good as to guide our good friend, friend in the loosest possible manner of course, to your cell again so he can sleep off his latest episode?”

Here ends but ONE mighty tale, among a plethora of such mighty tales, of Durz the Mighty, conqueror of all he sees, founder of Shrike City and proud member of the Horde in the Sky when his time comes due…

“These events follow the events in Pitax at the Rushlight Tournament – Log 1 of 2”

After two years of relative peace in our kingdom, my son, Io Brightheart came to me once fine morning.

“I’ve had a vision from Iomedae father. She has directed me to an abandoned abbey, I think, to cleanse it of some past taint. I only saw myself in the vision, so I believe this is a test from our Goddess, for me, alone.”

He has even been the more devout of us, and is closer to Iomedae than I have ever been. When Io declares something like this, I believe him. While, like any father, I wish my son to safe, and failing that, to go along with him to help ensure said safety, I trust both him and Iomedae.

Several weeks go by, and this is nothing unusual, for I have no idea where Io’s quest has taken him.

However, Andromeda Niska, our resident witch, and lately, tentatively, friend, appears to have been keeping an eye on my son. Up till this point, she has not interfered as she believed him to be completely safe. Her latest scrying suggests that while Io is alright presently, something seems amiss, and Andromeda believes that Io could be in danger.

Her scrying has given her a location, and I immediately ready myself for travel, only to find those mighty companions, friends and powerful allies all, ready themselves to come with me. Learion, Oret Eberheart and Imajica were all in Shrike City at the time and determine to make the trip by my side. Iomedae has blessed me indeed to give me such valiant and loyal friends. It’s was with a heavy heart that we left without Khan Getafix, as he was away on some pressing business for the realm. Such are the duties of the King.

It was a long trip, but thankfully Imajica was able to teleport us almost half the required distance. From our newest stronghold, Fort Drelev, we made our way deep into territory considered to be the rule of Pitax.

An abandoned abbey was a indeed our destination, and Imajica seemed to pull historical facts of the place from seemingly nowhere. Such is his depth and breadth of learning I suppose.

Oreo was made invisible and he bravely scouted the area ahead to give us any sort of understanding of the layout above. Unfortunately he was unable to discover much, but there appeared to be a guard in the bell tower, situated off to one side of the abbey itself.

Not knowing if there was trouble or not, we made no effort to hide (Learion and myself would have struggled at that regardless) and made our way directly to the bell tower. I bade Oret to climb the side of the tower while the rest of us approach in a more orthodox manner. Opening the door, we found the room to be empty, but Oret found an area above in the broken rafters where a guard could have been situated.

From there, our only real option was to investigate the abbey. Going straight in, we were confronted by stairs up on one side, down on the other, and curtains directly in front of us. I chose the simple, direct route and made for the curtains.

This is where I found my precious son, seated serenely in front of a large flower, on top of which, was situated a jewel of some kind. I immediately went to him, but before I made more than five feet, enemy combatants emerged from all over the place, none of whom appeared to have been there before. Sorcery!

“Kill the human!”

Some form of creature was aiming an arrow directly at Learion (Imajica assured us it was a wererat, and devised us not to get bitten by it). Well, a threat to a friend is a threat to me, so I called on Iomedae and intercepted every arrow that was launched at Learion.

The fight was brutal, but surprisingly quick. Learion was able to do some significant damage to a surrounding melee combatants before he fell. Oret saved him from certain death while Imajica kept the enemy at bay best he could with magics. I simply concentrated on defence to start with and was able to call on Iomedae to heal all of us, thankfully preserving the life that Oret fought so bravely to save.

Learion had one last trick however and blasted the wererat from his perch with what can only be a divinely guided bolt from his crossbow, allowing us to make short work of the remaining ambushers.

We were able to discern that the rabble rouser, Grigori, that we temporarily captured when Shrike City was still being formed was behind the ambush. Learion has made plain his desire to end the threat to our kingdom once and for all, and I wholeheartedly agree.

The jewel Io was seated in front of was the key. It transported us to what seemed like a memory of the past where a crazed priest of Iomedae was slaughtering the peaceful monks. There seemed no way to change the memory, so we finally decided, on Oret’s suggestion, to make our way down to the monks brewery.

A long and deep tunnel was carved into the hillside, ending in a small cavern, consisting of a large body of water and a scum covered isle, with just a rickety wooden bridge adjoining them. I made my way to the isle, intent on cleaning it up, hoping this might help our cause…

"Get the one with the big sword" ..... Wait what?

A lot has happened in the past two years but will get to that at a later date.

We are looking for Roche’s son whom has gone investigating a abbey because he had a vision from his god. ( I know right … crazy ) ( but i followed a vision of my father so who’s judging? )

We get to the outskirts of this Abbey and walk through the gap in the stone wall everything looking run down and not used.

The first thing we notice is the smell … Musty and only as soon as we pass the wall.
We decide to send in the monk with a invisible spell on him to scout the area.
Ten minutes later he comes back with a very vague description of the area but he had noticed a man in the bell tower whom was quite jumpy.

We all head straight to the bell tower to confront this man but he had gone. There was a weird sound of bells ringing in the distance but it could only be herd from within the bell tower.

Next was the Abbey its self. We walk in and start our search for Roche’s son it did not take long to find him sitting down in front of a small weird looking flower.
We did not get a chance to go see to him though as many many many people appeared from the vats of wine on the side of the room maybe even had the appearance of the barrels put on them.
I heard a voice from up in the rafters say “get that one the one with the big sword” GULP.

The fight did not last long as i knew they were after me for some reason, maybe word had got out that my fighting style was one to be cautious of ??
Turns out no that’s not the reason the Rat in the rafters was specialized at killing humans and i was the only one in there.

One big swing and i managed to hurt or kill many of the melee fighters within range. then one more swing at one fellow was my only contribution to the fray as i was focused on and knocked unconscious …. twice.

After i was roused for the second time the group attacking us had surrendered.
The Rat was put to death by Roche with no complaint from the rest of us.
Only two others from his band of men was still alive and we questioned them and then let them go as it turns out they were just mercenary’s for hire.

They told us that a man we knew of had let them know all our vulnerability’s and where and what we were doing. I will make it my mission to find him and with no warning once found will run him right through his gut, he has vexed me he has terribly vexed me.

We tried to see what was effecting the son of Roche as he was not responding to anything we did.
The only thing that cam to my mind was touching the flower that was in front of him.
I found myself in the Abbey but its was looking fine with no signs of wear and tear i touch the plant again and find myself on the floor with a sore nose.
I tell the group what I saw then i decide to go back and investigate a little more.

This time i take a walk outside and i see a man laying waste to the monks but i can not do anything about it it all looks like a vision i head back inside and I hear a familiar voice from behind me . . . Roche’s son at this point Roche turns up in this version of the world and we decide we need to investigate the tunnel that the monk found in is scouting.

We head to the tunnel and there is a small island with dancing lights and green mold surrounded by water.
We head in …………

After rescuing the Bog Strider and clearing the Boggard camp, we made our way back to the Bog Strider camp. Being greeted by the ex-captive was a relief! He made it home safely.

While there was no monetary rewards (the satisfaction was more than enough reward), the Bog Striders were able to give us much more detailed information for our map, and this allowed us to make a decision on where to head next.

There really only seemed like one remaining threat that was urgent. Some sort of woman with no legs that had the Bog Striders concerned, so we made our way over to investigate.

We were actually greeted by a Boggard standing front of something massive, that looked like a tree, some forty round, lying flat on the swampy ground. When greeted, the Boggard bade us wait for the lady as she wanted to speak to us.

Some form of snake woman slithered out to see us. I wish I could say that diplomacy was the order of the day, but her first sentence was something to the tune of needing more slaves to serve her and then she cast some sort of spell.

Luckily nobody seemed to be affected, so we spread out and looked to end this decisively.

The snake woman had other ideas and proceeded to cast spells to hamper us and succeeded in trapping some of our group in some form of terrain, all the while, slithering away and keeping her distance.

Learion had the Boggard covered, so I immediately moved toward the snake lady, with Oret moving to my assistance. Io was trapped, but both our casters were free and casting away themselves (Imajica cast haste and Khan summoned a massive fire elemental).

Just as we got close to the snake lady, she teleported away, and re-appeared a fair distance away, way up on top of the tree.

Khan commanded his fire elemental to follow her and proceeded to summon an air elemental as well, while Imajica beckoned the rest of us over to him and used his dimension door to teleport us up to where she was.

With very little room up there, we were pressed right up against the edge and at risk of falling a long way down if anything happened. Luckily for us, Learion happened to her instead. With a couple of well placed blows, he cleft her in twain and another danger to our budding kingdom was taken care of

I have also dispatched all my followers to each of our outlying settlements to help bolster their defences.

Threats taken care of, we returned home to Shrike City to continue fortifying our kingdom so that attacks from the likes of Fort Drelev can no longer cause us trouble…

Battleplans tend to need to be set and then remain fluid. This allows for some structure and then the ability to alter as required to ensure victory is yours.

Somehow, between Learion, Imajica and I we were completely unable to come up with a plan that we agreed upon. Instead, we simply teleported to the nearest hut and wandered round until we found an entrance.

It was at THIS point that we found out the Boggards skill in noticing things. That is, complete and lack of said skill. Learion and I wandered round the base of the hut, with two Boggards in a tree right next to us. Learion found the entrance and called out and I moved to joined him. At no stage were we spotted or heard…

In the hut was the Bog Strider leaders son, whom we promptly escorted out and Imajica led us back through the dimension door and the Bog Strider immedaitely thanked us and said he could find his own way home from where we were, now he was no longer a captive.

Magic entrance now used, we were forced to simply approach the Boggard village on foot, alerting them to our presence. The first guards were quickly cut down, so Io and I moved to the nearest mound (the Bog Strider had informed us the mounds were entrances to the Boggard underground holdings) and lifted back the leather flap to reveal a chamber with what looked to be a priest and his minions.

The minions were hard up against the wall, cowering in fear, but the priest appeared calm. Io cast a wall of stone to block off two of the three exits from the chamber and I dropped down and guarded the other, while Io, less graceful than he would have wanted, simply fell face first into the same chamber.

Outside, the sounds of magic and fighting were prevailent. Oret dropped into the chamber as well. As he did so, the priest summoned a giant scorpion, which immediately attacked.

While defending us, I missed the priest casting yet another spell. This time, the water that was merely a foot deep in the chamber at the time, suddenly surged up to the roof and washed Io, myself and the scorpion down the one remaining corridor, leaving Oret by himself in the chamber with the priest.

After picking ourselves up, Io and I found that the scorpion had followed us involuntarily, and was now stuck in the tunnel between us and Oret. With only one course of action, I attacked the summoned creature while Io held back. With it being trapped, the creature was not really in a position to be dangerous, and I simply put it out of its misery.

Once it was dead, Io and I were able to pull the creature out of the tunnel with some difficulty and then struggle (well, Io struggled, he had previously cast freedom of movement on me, so the tunnel was easy to move in) down the passge to the chamber where Oret was trapped.

Turns out he was not so much trapped with the priest, but the priest was trapped in there with him. By the time I got back in there, the priest was taken care of and the other Boggards were still cowering in fear against the walls.

With the priest taken care of, it simply remained to check the rest of the underground lair and find any survivors (we let them all go free as they would struggle to mount a threat now) and retrieve any valuables.

It was time to head back to the Bog Striders and see that the son had arrived safely…

Our travel is now into weeks. Time must be divided between ruling our kingdom and exploring the swamps around Fort Drelev.

By necessity, the ruling is done quickly as we must make the new additions to our realm safe for trade and most especially, for living in.

The ruling focuses on joining our realms together with roads and farms to support our growth. By gathering more lands and utilising them well, we have seen many people flock to our fledgling empire, and Shrike City has grown faster than we all believed possible.

Unfortunately, this may mean we become a target for other kingdoms, as Fort Drelev made so obvious, so fortifying all our towns with walls and defences is an absolute must before the luxuries can be added to make our citizens lives more comfortable. I think being alive is better than comfortable and dead!

Otherwise, it is slogging through a swamp we go. We are looking for boggards that cause trouble in the area, interrupting trade and making life difficult for our new city state of Fort Drelev.

As we explored, we stumbled upon a race of beings I had never seen before. I was assured that they were called bogstriders and were both intelligent and likely to be enemies of the boggards.

Khan and I approached them, after being asked to remove our weapons. Thankfully Imajica had a spell that allowed me to converse with them in their native tongue, and Khan, who has an incredible command over language, was already able to talk to them.

After brief introductions, it became obvious that these beings were not really warriors, but putting on a brave face and demanding our acquiescence. While I revel in the role of diplomat, I do not do so from a position of subservience, and sought to treat all as equals. This did make the discussions more difficult however and may not have been the best option at this time.

We were able to find out from their leader where the boggards made their camp and a good estimate of their numbers. It sounds as though there is about fifty of them, making this a sizable village.

It was also pointed out that the leaders son has been taken hostage, and in their passive aggressive style, we were bid to rescue him. While I would do so willingly. it seemed our best recourse was to do so quickly as there was no real telling what could have happened to him in between being captured and now.

With this mission ringing in our ears, we made haste for the boggard encampment and have started casting defensive magics on ourselves as we walk directly up to the camp…

In our travels we were naturally very thorough. We explored as much terrain as possible to ensure that there would be no dangers (or prizes!) left undiscovered.

One such danger was the lair of a chuul. Having been attacked by one of these a few years ago, where Learion lost his horse and nearly provided a meal for it under water, it was deemed to evil to live.

Moving forward, I challenged it to a fair fight (and possibly with Imajica trying to lay bets in the background for some reason), but something in the grasses startled in (turns out it was Khan controlling the very grass we walk upon to inhibit our enemies) and it retreated into it’s cavern.

Following it in appeared to be a mistake as two more erupted out of the water from behind us, but between the lot of us, we have learned a great deal since those days, year previous where one such creature could trouble us and short work was made of all three.

Learion did, however, try to provide one himself as a food source…again!

Further travel found us deeper into the bog and we came across a large area that appeared to have been flattened by something massive. So Learion immediately threw a large rock into the water surrounding the area and proceeded to alert the creature to our presence…

It turned out to be a thirteen headed hydra. A monstrosity that we haven’t encountered before, but Imjaica understood their ways and informed us that the beast was best killed by blows to the, as the heads would keep reforming and doubling in number.

Khan provided some form of magical impediment and damage to the creature and Iomedae protected me as I went forth and faced it and I was lucky not to be hit particularly often before Oret and Learion, under the benefit of the haste spell, were able to cut it down.

Our greatest trouble was to come however!

We had previously encountered four large black dragons, flying as a group. They tormented us once, had one of their number find us again and attack us, although at the cost of its own life and finally, the remaining three found us as we set off their ambush.

At first, we thought there was only one as it surprised several of us by erupting out of a swampy patch of bushes. It immediately called for help and something about the foul beast terrified Io and shook the resolve of Oret.

Moving forward to the beast, I lost sight of Imajica as moved out of my line of sight. Io fled, terrified in the opposite direction of the dragon, Oret moved to flank it, moving freely through the dense terrain thanks to his ring of freedom of movement. Learion moved in front of me and Khan, in the form of a large air elemental took to the sky.

At this point, the remaining two dragons landed on either side of our party. Breaths of acid were flying through the air thick and fast, and even as I was calling on iomedae to bless us and protect us from acid, I was moving to slow to save everybody.

Oret flailed at the first beast side, unable to do much damage through the thick hide of the dragon. But Learion was nearby to Oret, and a plan formed. Iomedae allowed me to shared my sacred link to her power and I allowed the other melee to smite the dragon in my stead.

Iomedaes power is vast and that dragon felt the full brunt of it through fist and blade. I did my part by calling on her healing powers to keep Oret in particular alive.

As this was happening, a huge fire elemental appeared and fought for us, under the control of our druid, Khan. This bought us precious flanking and distraction, allowing me to heal while others simply focused on killing dragons.

Then we were smothered in a fog cloud, cast by another dragon. Oret was in a bad way and since he provided the killing blow for all dragon kind to see, he was the primary target. He wisely kept moving as I made my way over to heal him and Learion used the remaining power of Iomedae to smite a second dragon.

Suddenly, Io appeared near us, out of thin air and another elemental appeared behind the last dragon left alive. The timing of these events was fortuitous and through our combined skill and power, we all survived, more or less intact and the dragons were vanquished!

The glory belongs to Iomedae, however, I worry that these four are the children brood for something much older…only time will tell.

Iomedae must have answered my prayer. There was only one more room with a small secret room attached to it, and no more foes to face.

The room we came into immediately after slaying the barbarian was large and mostly empty. The only thing of note was the sarcophagus on a dais. This turned out to be where the original Armag was interred.

Naturally, the lid was lifted, and inside was a curiously intact body. Withered, desiccated, but surprisingly, whole and faintly recognisable even after hundreds of years. On the body was suit of armour and a heavy steel shield. Both glowed with strong magic according to our casters.

It was at this point that Khan found a secret room, so while the rest hurried away to search that, I prayed to Iomedae for guidance. Tomb robbery is something I have found abhorrent in the past, however, my Goddess does not seem so bothered my such mundane matters unless it directly concerns her in some way.

The silence was deafening.

After hearing nothing from her, and fighting my conscience, I realised that the shield was something that would aid me in keeping my party alive, so I moved to switch it with my own. At the last second, I remembered that Io could use mine, so he got that in the end as well.

The rest of the party made merry with a large pile of treasure in the secret room and then it was time to leave. A few false turns and a little frustration and we were out. Straight up to where Imajica placed his rope trick and rescuing the previously enslaved girls was followed up by immediately getting to Fort Drelev to see them safe.

Cara, the niece of Restov’s Mayor was found and teleported back home as well, apparently to a remarkably small amount of fuss.

With Fort Drelev still in danger from all sides, we discussed the best course of action with Lord Terrion Numesti. His suggestion was that boggards were infesting the swamps and causing both a restriction in trade and a danger to the populace. With a solid direction in mind, we moved out.

With the enemy cleric safely behind his wall of blades, it was look extremely dangerous.

I handed back Learion’s polearm since he was better equipped to utilize it than I was, which was proved very quickly when I made several unsuccessful attacks with it.

Our respective gods must have been battling for supremacy above us, and Iomedae gave us strength. Io kept us alive, Imajica threw magical lightning around, Khan provided magical assistance where necessary, Oret maintained a dangerous ranged presence with his shuriken and Learion thrust his polearm through the enemies defences and rent him asunder, while I cried out with the force of my god to focus his attention on me.

With all this happening, mighty magics were unleashed upon us, but Io kept us going, and he was cut down before he could get off his own heal.

A short rest was required and during that time, the blade barrier fell, allowing our resident magpie, Khan, to search the remains (he withered away into extremely old age before our eyes as he died), finding a few useful items.

Through the door we moved then. Immediately into combat!

The door was opened and we were greeted with the sight of dead barbarians lying on the floor, skeleton warriors lined up awaiting us and a large man in heavy armour with an ornate greatsword ready to charge.

Stepping forth, I took the brunt of the attacks from the skeletons and the large man. Khan flew past everybody into the room, taking a number of wounds in the process, Learion stepped up behind me to cleave his way through the skeletons that were approaching, Io cast a protective barrier of wind to stop the archers (which Khan then immediately stole and blasted us with…for some good reason I’m hoping!) and moved up behind me as well.

Imajica flung his magic prowess around like toys and Oret was locked in place unfortunately behind the rest of the party, but he still had his shurikens flying through the combat, lacing into any enemy he could find.

The massive barbarian cleaved through my armour with an ease I have never experienced, even when I was fighting trolls, early in my career! Blessedly the pain didn’t last long as I was knocked unconscious.

The next thing I know, I wake to find Khan whirling in his air elemental form near me and I’m now behind the barbarian and in the middle of the skeletons, having been trampled over.

From here, Learion took quick care of the barbarian, and the skeletons held little fear for a party such as ours.

Most of us heavily wounded, almost zero magical reserves left, we are in a bad way, but hopefully, we have stopped this terrible ritual from happening, whatever it was. All that’s left before us is another door, hopefully the last one in the catacomb, and hopefully no more enemies!

Iomedae preserve us from harm, but we still have to get back out and take those poor girls home! We can’t die in here…

With masses of large ants descending on Io, I felt panic. Until I looked down that is and saw the quiet confidence in his eyes. As the rest of the party made their way round the walls and past the trap I had set off, Io simply climbed the walls quickly and calmly and made his way through.

Once safe, we made our way through the door at the end of the passage and ended up back in the room with the golem. It appeared that we had been round in a circle, facing dangers unnecessarily. With no choice but to sigh and carry on, we did just that.

Through the next door (bashed in, breaking my magical flail in the process) we soon found ourselves in a large room with a massive central pillar. Learion and Imajica made their way over to the central pillar, Khan stayed near the entrance so that nothing could surprise us from behind while Oret, Io and I moved around the room looking for more magically disguised doors.

Naturally, this is where things went wrong. We were ambushed as a hail of arrows flew down from between some stalactites and stalagmites, punching through armour and causing a quick assessment of our safest position.

Khan cast some form of powerful magic, revealing the very well armed and armoured skeletons and damaging them in the process and Io followed up with a simple, but extremely effective fog cloud, blocking their line of sight.

With Oret, Learion and me standing in front of the others in case the skeletons came down, Imajica decided now was the appropriate to try out a spell he had been working on. All we could see was him casting something into the fog and then the noise of swords hitting something.

Imajica informed us that he had summoned a black pudding. A moment later, he screwed his face up and informed us that we should move away from the fog cloud as he did not have control over the thing and that the skeletons may create more of them by slicing them up.

After a minute or so, the room decended into silence and nothing moved forward to attack us, so Io dissipated the fog cloud. With three spells, our casters had got us out of a dangerous ambush. Incredible.

A magically hidden door was found and through it we went (locked again, so destroyed it was) and found a room with pillars running the length of it down either side, and a man dressed in leather and feathers standing at the far end at the base of some stairs. He was identified as a divine caster of some sort, most likely a cleric of Gorum, and was definitely not evil, as I would have sensed it.

He called himself the final test, indicating that all we had been through prior to this was naught but a test to see if we could make it this far.

Finally somebody who we can actually talk to! Unfortunately that led us nowhere and we were left with little option. At this point, his words suggesting he was a test came back and while there was nothing obvious pertaining to the type of test, I decided to bypass it completely and simply scare him into letting us pass. I didn’t see the need to kill somebody who was obviously not evil.

He sighed at me! And then attacked.

By charging, both Oret and I were able to close in on him quickly, forcing him to move around us and defend himself with more magic, along with the previously cast magic (suggested by the regenerating he was doing from the wounds we caused him). A veritable wall of blades sprung up around him and is proving to be a deadly barrier, as proved by my inability to get by it, causing a large amount of damage and pain.

Learion has provided me with a polearm so that I can attack him, and Io is healing us all in the hopes that Iomedae will assist us against a chosen of Gorum. This is looking grim as most of us a sporting some wounds and I am only a good swing away from death, barely holding myself together.

The room was large, with four pillars and a high domed roof. In the middle was a massive suit of armour. Most likely a construct of some kind. This premonition proved true as soon as I stepped into the room, the thing activated and moved to attack us.

Imajica had informed us this was an Iron Golem and filled us with all the details he could glean in the moments before we attacked. It sounded fearsome indeed! Immune to large amounts of magic, resistant to large amounts of damage, requiring special weapons to harm it consistently…

Luckily for us, my god blessed my sword and this allowed me to damage the construct with more ease, and Learion simply swung his massive blade so hard that the thing was in trouble quickly regardless. What could have been an extremely difficult encounter, was dealt with great efficiency thankfully, but not before it pounded Learion a few times, leaving some impressive wounds.

A quick heal from Khan’s trusty wand patched him up and we continued on our way. There were two doors spotted and a secret door as well thanks to the sharp eyes of Khan and Oret. Since the doors were the obvious choice, we opted for the secret door.

This proved an unwise choice. We were almost immediately assaulted by fog, webs, unseen stairs and finally daemons! Massive things, with five arms and covered in spikes, they attacked us as we walked and let off some form of aura that Iomedae protected me from.

One was in front of me and then simply vanished. From the screaming happening behind me, it appeared to be attacking the party from behind, and Oret appeared to be taking the brunt of the attacks, saving the others from harm. Before I could move to help, another daemon appeared in front of me and attacked. Between Learion and I, we made short work of the foul thing (Iomedae be praised), but our path to the other one was blocked by some earth elementals that appeared to help us. Making our way past, I could see that Oret was almost dead. Somehow this thing had almost torn him asunder, so Io went to work and helped get him back in the fight. With my blessed blade and faith in my goddess, the other daemon fell quickly as well, the elementals swarming over it to assist in finishing it off.

Once past them, I led us towards the next room. This was a metal floor and a low curved roof. Imajica, fearing a trap, tossed a broken battle axe onto the floor, but nothing happened. I reasoned that anything that might happen must be further in, so I cautiously stepped onto the floor.

The cursed floor dropped away from me immediately! Luckily I was able to keep my balance and step back avoiding being trapped on spikes in alcove below the metal floor. Some quick eyes spotted some items down there, so with the assistance of Khans communal spiderclimb, I moved around the walls and moved the floor until I could rescue the items, before we made our way past the room.

The next room looked certain to have a trap in it, but for whatever reason, we didn’t find one. Probably a good thing! The large statue in the middle was looking directly at us as we entered, but after much testing and searching, it was revealed to simply be a well crafted statue.

This had a number of exits in here, but following one led us directly back to the room via one of the others exits. Leaving only two choices, so a lack of any other real options lead us towards the exit that wasn’t a locked door.

Through the fog again and immediately at the end of the tunnel was a sheer drop. In front of us was some form of chasm and a number of pillars in the chasm, all with rounded tops. These looked to be about jumpable distance apart, however, the spiderclimb spell was still upon us, so a more simple option of merely climbing around the walls was used.

As per normal, I led the way, ensuring that should anything dangerous be in front of us, it would meet my blade first. Unfortunately, the danger was present, but in a different form. As soon as I touched the threshold on the other side, I set off some form of trap and a massive gust of wind blew right past me, buffeting the rest of the group.

This buffet was so strong that it plucked my son, Io right off the wall and knocked him to the bottom of the chasm. He landed hard, and looked a little dazed, but the worst was to come. Angry swarms of huge, finger long red ants poured out of the ground and made their way towards Io! The only consolation I have is Imajica declaring that he can save Io…

With the rest of the party getting healed and back on their feet, it was time to take the fight to those foul women. Affronting my Goddess results in a sentence of justice and in this case, death was the only option.

Moving past the remaining daemon as it swung ineffectually at me, I engaged the women directly. They had forced themselves up against the wall, probably so as to make flanking them impossible. Evil they may be, but stupid they were not.

Spells of all sorts began to be cast at me, but my faith kept me strong, even while they were stripping the magical defences Io had place on me away. I kept them occupied while the rest of the group dispatched the last daemon and moved to assist in ending the evil threat.

Oret tied one up in knots using his now finely honed mastery of unarmed combat. Learion swung his greatsword mightily, hewing down foes and the others either kept up a magical barrage or ensured there was nothing else to challenge us.

Once defeated, we moved onto the doors. Imajica was able to open both doors with magics, leading to one tunnel filled with an ominous fog and another with stone boulders in it. Sight proved preferable, so the boulders tunnel was chosen.

The boulders were apparently supposed to be placed in similar sized depressions in stairs leading up towards the only door. Unfortunately, each boulder was bigger than the last and the biggest one, naturally, had to go on the top step. Several of the group (Oret, Io, Learion and Imajica) moved into the tunnel to move the boulders around. Finally getting the last one in, the top door opened…only for the previous doors to slam shut!

Khan and I were separated and trapped. With no locksmith, our only course of action was to bash our way through the door. Luckily, we had access to plenty of weapons that the dead barbarians were no longer using, so I hacked away until I was able to get Khan and myself through.

The others were waiting for us, not particularly willing to go to far into the next room, and for good reason. One door out, not counting the one we came through, and the only obvious way of opening it was a large wheel with a single handle on it, mounted on a beam, coming out of the floor. This part of the floor was covered in a sheet of metal, nestled between four pillars. It was obviously a trap.

That didn’t mean we didn’t have to face it, and with the faith in my Goddess pushing me forward, I stepped onto the metal sheet and started moving the wheel. This set off the trap of course, but luckily, I was able to cast a protection spell on myself that allowed me to ignore the cold damage from the trap as I turned the wheel. This could have been deadly to somebody else, so I thanks Iomedae for guiding me towards this, saving others from a painful fate.

Through the door, and Imajica was able to identify the spell being used in here as some form of ward spell (he knew it, but I was never much of an arcane scholar) which could lead to us being confused at intersections, fog blocking all forms of sight, webs in areas and doors covered by some form of glamour.

Our options are limited, so down the passage we go, reaching our first intersection. Deciding to simply follow the leader, and therefore keep together as a group, I turned left, hopefully, and headed further in. To a small basically empty room.

Back the way we came and turning left again, reasoning that would take us straight ahead from our original entrance we came to a dead end. Khan’s sharp eyesight found the door in front of us, however, it too proved to be locked. With our trusty borrowed barbarian weapons, Learion hacked through the door on his side while I whittled away at the door on my side.

A noble barbarian passes the time

Ah, Shrike City. Of all cities that I have conquered, founded and led, this is my favourite!

Women! Beer! Tales of greatness! Fights! This has them all.

I, Durz the mighty, have blessed this fine city with my might. My name has become famous and the people love me.

Khan, my friend and the one the people look to when I am away has just left again, to continue with the errand that will help make this place a little safer. The warrior Learion, with his pleasingly, ever larger, mighty sword leading from the fore, as I showed him many years ago, the elf, witty as ever, left with his usual parting words (I really must educate him some more…he does seem to keep getting friend and imbecile mixed up. Unless…imbecile is the elven word for mighty companion?! This must be it! I have mastered a new language. I shall be sure to greet him in kind when he returns), Oret of the mittens, little Io (I fear this one is shy…I keep buying him women and he looks confused each time at this great gift) and his father, the mighty paladin (and really, really uptight!) have all joined again.

The city has been in good hands while I was enjoying the local wenches and ale, but alas, it is time to rule again. The people of this fine city need my guidance and guidance they shall have!

Tomorrow, after the ale has worn off…

In the mean time, Oret has a sister! What a woman! She accepts NO coin, but I am sure that I will find the amount that releases her inhibitions. While I find that though, I have been putting in a good word for Learion. A mighty man with a fine choice in killing deserves a wench to come home to, and Ekho should be just such a wench. I have been filling her with tales of Learions glory in battle and bed with equal measure and she seems to enjoy these tales! Her face tells of her intetest, mouth agape with hunger and face red with delight…it is the tales of Learions bed exploits that seem to excite her the most!

I will bed her first so that Learion finds a compliant woman waiting for him. Only a good friend would do this, and I, Durz the mighty, am the BEST of friends!

But maybe tomorrow…my head hurts and the light is too bright…

Rest assured my friends, the mission your complete for me and my city is vital to its safety and you shall be well rewarded on your arrival home. Try to leave some of the killing for me and I shall see you in the Great Horde in the Sky once again.

A bear skin! I promised Oret a bear skin! I must get this to show his favour he has earnt in my company.

With a destination in mind and directions available thanks to the map found at Fort Drelev, we made our way almost directly to where the barbarians should be situated.

Khan proved his worth again by scouting out the area from overhead. A hollow with a cave mouth in the depression, surrounded by tents and a number of barbarians proved the map correct.

Approaching the area, we had to back track a little and find a ford to cross the river, but as we approached, I hailed the camp. The response was simple, and sadly, violent. The guard in front immediately roared at us and charged, rather than letting us talk our way past.

Unfortunate for him really since he was cut down in moments. As he roared though, more barbarians rushed our position. I moved past the first few and engaged the bulk towards the back. Learion and Oret made their way through the barbarians who engaged them fairly quickly (with assistance from a magical buff from Io and Imajica) with brutal swings of a greatsword and a flurry of puches and kicks.

Khan used the weather to his advantage and provided covering fire in the form of lightning called down from the heavens.

The group that assailed me were ineffectual, but in turn, the sheer numbers arrayed against me made dispatching them difficult. While I was no real danger, this group was preventing me from getting to the prisoners I spied trapped in a wooden cage being guarded by two barbarians.

That said, one of the prisioners (all female humans) managed to grab a guard and choke him into submission and I called for help to deal with the other as he was making his way into the cage.

Imajica and Khan dealt with him through a combination of magics. Io also made his way over and dealt the final blow to the guard being choked.

The prisioners were pleased to be freed, but, pleading aside, we were not able to lead them away immediately. Some clever magic later and they were safely hidden for about ten hours, giving us time to get into the cave and stop whatever was happening in there.

We did briefly try to question the one remaining guard, but clearly he was unable to speak out tongue and we could not make ourselves understood. Based on his companions previous actions, I concluded that he was still a threat, and would only attack us again, or go for help and bring more to his aid. It was with a heavy heart that I ended his threat in the most direct route. Iomedae save my soul for the decision I have made this day.

With a limited timeframe, we made haste into the cave and were almost immediately greeted with carved passages and a chamber with three statues in it. The walls looked to be stained with blood possibly. Also in this chamber were three woman waiting for us. They were wearing religious symbols that imajica identified as the same cult that attempted to set up in Shrike City.

Again, I offered them a chance to live and leave the cave behind. They again, as appears to be the standard here, took the opportunity to attack. With reluctance, we moved to defend ourselves.

Three daemons appeared, summons by these witches foul magics, and assaulted with more magic from the women, we were in some peril. Some speedy slashing and martial arts saw two of the three daemons go down, but all I could focus on was the sight of my son, Io, falling to the floor, dying.

Khan was able to save him in time with a handy use of a wand, and Io also channeled Iomedae’s will and healing flowed through those near him. I moved closer and also called on Iomedae and her will leant healing to those near me as well.

Learion and Oret suddenly looked as though death could be held at bay and with renewed determination, we faced down the final daemon and the three witches. They will not be leaving here alive, foul blight against my god that they so obviously are.

With battle joined and a multitude of forces arrayed against us, Learion led from the front and showed offense is the best defence when dealing with these foes. A mighty giant was cut down brutally and quickly as he swung his greatsword.

Areas of magical interference were appearing as Khan and Imajica made life and movement difficult for the giants at ground level and Oret had disappeared up top of the towers, but less arrows were fired with each passing moment, so I can only assume that he was distracting them in some fashion.

The true threat to the giants however, was Learion. And realising this, they focused their massive clubs on him and brought him down. A few brutal blows had our battle leader on the ground and in dire need of help, or he risked death.

Io has proven himself before, but today, he really showed that as a battle healer, there is nothing more I can teach him. His faith in Iomedae was rewarded as he moved towards Learion and brough him back from the brink of death with a prayer and a touch. He kept moving so as to stay out of reach of the giants and was able to chanel Iomedaes power through himself and heal several of us, while keeping the giants away from the power of our Goddess.

Back on his feet, Learion followed my lead, and where my sword struck, leaving burning marks on giant flesh, the greatsword rent them asunder.

While we were dealing with the giants, Imajica dealt with another group of archers, Oret moved into yet another tower and dealt with the inhabitants there as well and Io distracted the last group for just long enough for us to finish the battle and capture a survivor.

During this time, Khan had been forced to retreat as the archers had focused on him primarily, seeing from their vantage point, his magic affecting the battle below. Luckily, he returned and was in better shape than before, thanks to judicious use of healing magic and avoiding the archers.

A thorough search of the towers turned up one remaing mercenary guard and the Lady Quintessa Maray, the same bard who had caused Learion to fall under sway of the vile confusion effect.

It turns out she had fled the earlier battle and had been hiding for nearly twenty four hours in her room, waiting for rescue. Once she was informed of what had gone down in Fort Drelev, she seemed to gravitate towards Khan. Perhaps she has something for men who weild political power? Regardless, she appears harmless now and sincere in her desire to be done with this place and assist us in our cause.

We have put Terrion Numesti in charge of Fort Drelev for now, with the blessing of all who we asked, most especially Satinder, as she seems to understand the people.

For now, our next move seems simple enough. Fort Drelev was taken over by Pitax as a means of diverting unwanted barbarian tribe attention from Pitax back to Fort Drelev. If we are to claim Fort Drelev as part of Elklund and ake it safe for all who would live here, then the barbarian tribes must be dealt with.

To that end, Imajica and Khan found a map to a place that seems to match the information we got from a dead barbarian back at Tatzlford. So we make plans to visit the tombs of a certain Armag the Twice Born.

Perhaps we can talk with these people as we did the centaurs of our lands…

Drelev was questioned at great length by Imajica and we learnt a great deal about his dealings with Pitax. Once our curiousity was satisfied, Imajica teleported him back to our lands and had him incarcerated. This process took longer than usual however, and there were murmurs that Imajica may have fallen foul of something.

In time, Imajica returned, somewhat flustered. Apparently the control of magic this powerful can sometimes be fickle and he had managed to overshoot his destination.

It was decided that we needed to get inside the town proper and speak to Satine, as directed before we left. Since we are a group where subtlety is a somewhat underdeveloped skill, the direct approach through the town gates was deemed appropriate. So back through the tunnels and up the cliff (thanks to Khan and some handy magic assisting our climb) and to the front gates we marched.

The guards didn’t seem overly concerned as we approached and challenged our reason for arriving. A simple discussion resulting in us being merchants of some kind was suffice to allow us passage.

A walk through the town showed a number of things, such as a large amount of guard patrols, an abandoned temple and a stunning woman chatting easily to all and sundry.

In fact, she ushered us over and offered us time to take our ease at her establishment, but conversation quickly (for I felt little need of THAT sort of relaxation) turned to us arranging a meeting with the propietor, Satinder. Our luck held and we were talking to Satinder. A guesture of a long stemmed flower inserted into the provided ring and name (Kisandra) gave us the meeting we were after.

She proved happy to help and provided us a safe room to reside during our time here and a secret way in and out of her establishment. She was also able to get the goods we rescued back to the people who needed it most.

Or next course of action seemed to challenge us. Of course, this is where we fall back onto the tried and true method of going directly to the source of a problem. In this case, the giants and mercenaries were suggested by Satinder as the cause for most of the fear in the town.

As is our way, an immediate trip to the keep that we had previously been hiding in, this time from the front, was our destination. A little trick of magic, and Imajica had us through the gates before they realised what was going on.

Unfortunately, that was as far as we got before the alarm was raised and guards and giants started appearing from all over the place. Oret disappeared up the wall, Khan had flown over the keep and was out of sight, leaving Learion, Io, Imajica and I to face the oncoming tide.

In a dangerous position of Learion confused and trapped in an invisible cage with me, Io unconscious with Drelev threatening his life, a mage casting powerful spells and Oret alone standing against him, Khan outside, nowhere to be seen, Imajica around the corner, also trapped in the forcecage, things looked pretty grim.

Oret, however, changed the complexion of the battle by managing to cling onto the mage, forcing him to flee the battlefield, and Imajica managed to slip the forcecage and had Drelev under a magical compulsion of his own.

In a few short seconds, the battle turned in our favour. And Khan, it turns out, had also been busy. He had single handedly kept re-inforcements from flooding the room from across the barricades outside with all manner of spells and tricks of the weather.

Once the confusion had worn off Learion (thankfully before he started to try and kill me) and the cage disappeared, we had Drelev at our command. A minor miunderstanding almost caused a fight to break out between Drelev, Learion and myself, but imajica arrived back to ensure this was unnecessary. Apparently he had something else he had spotted and pursued.

Drelev was escorted down to the dungeons and relieved of most of his belongings, including the keyds to the jail cells. Imajica kept him safe while Learion, Khan and Oret investigated talk of a giant throwing rocks at our King.

I arrived in time to see the giant fall at Learions hands. Perhaps I should simply have stayed down with Imajica and Drelev since Learion, Oret and Khan appeared to have the situation completely under control. Iomedae is trying to teach me trust in those around me. I have much to learn.

The return of Imajica prompted our moving out. This area appeared devoid of sentries, so we explored the remainder of the floor. Mostly empty, there was one locked room, but a quick foray by Imajica as an elemental showed this to be the city treasury. It appeared to have been cleaned out, possibly to pay the surrender to foreign powers.

The stairs led us to the ground floor, where there were two guards, mercenaries from the looks, facing away. Lack of a subtle plan led Learion and myself to charge them, followed by a blast of colour from Imajica. The easy target must have confused Learion, as his swing was wild. They were taken down quickly however, without any alarm being raised.

This level was uninhabited aside from the two guards. The exit was there along with a circular staircase leading up.

Moving up, after securing the ground floor, we immediately looked left and found what looked to be an office. Khan spotted a creature above the bookcase and as soon as it knew it was spotted, it fled towards the window, even though we tried to talk first. Another appeared and we were attacked, so we defended ourselves. A fair amount of noise was being made by them, but Learion silenced one almost immediately. The other expired shortly afterwards.

It turns out that Imajica knew the familiar dying would alert the master. This lent a sense of urgency as an alarm of some kind must have been raised. Imajica and Khan focused on the desk and found some notes while the rest of us rushed towards the other side door.

We need not have worried.

We interrupted dinner. All the remaining guards, along with the Lord Drelev himself. A gorgeous woman sat with him and Drelev calmly announced intruders and battle was joined.

Immediately I blocked the door, but the woman cast a spell past me, similar to the Umber Hulks gaze, affecting Learion. Luckily the rest of us shook off the affects. Io was forced to hold Learion in place after it was obvious he was confused (smashing himself in the face with the hilt of his own blade).

The large double doors also swung open, revealing the rest of the troops. Damn, I can’t block everything this way, but Oret was there. Suddenly, so too was Imajica, appearing from nowhere and a cloud billowed forth from him, several of the guards dropping immediately, contorting in death.

Oret slammed the doors shut, but Drelev forced them open, while at the same time, another man came down the stairs, demanding to know who killed his familiar. Looks like we found the mage. He immediately cast a variation of lightning bolt that i’ve never seen, slamming into Oret, Io Learion and myself. Io looked rocked and moved past a now stunned Learion to find himself some space.

All this time, Khan was moving round the outside of the tower, peering through the windows, and found a target for his flaming sphere. Unfortunately, he missed the woman fleeing out of the tower, but he kept enemies focused.

The cloud floated through the double doors and Io gasped, clutched his throat and flee, unconscious to the floor, thankfully still breathing. Drelev then moved forward, but the mage cast some form of barrier, trapping Learion, myself and Imajica inside, with Learion shaking off the hold person.

Drelev has Io at his mercy, and I’m trapped. Our only hope now is Oret taking out the mage, all by himself. If he can, we may salvage this situation.

After Khan found a concealed entrance in the cliff face, it was up Imajica to find a way to open it. His arcane arts assisted him here and the three of our party that were able to easily traverse down the cliff, Imajica, Khan and Oret, made there way into the cave after Imajica had done some rudimentary scouting and found very little to be alarmed about.

This left Io, Learian and me ontop of the cliff waiting for word. It was quiet and since we were only 30 feet above the entrance, we remained quiet as well.

It wasn’t until Imajica popped into existence next to us as an earth elemental that we were aware anything was really wrong. He then created a magical door to below and bid us assist the others, who were holding off some black puddings.

Forewarned that they split when hit with sharp weapons, I switched to my flail and Learion hefted his guisarme round the wrong way as though he was weildinging a quarterstaff, and Io blessed us with protection from acid, thanking the lady Iomedae for her aid once again.

Stepping through the portal, I was able to move through Khan and Oret, who were sensibly holding back, watching the beasts move through a plethora of magical defenses that Khan had cleverly laid in their way.

Stepping up, I asked Iomedae to bless my weapon with extra speed and swung heavily at the creature, bludgeoning it to death, and waiting for the next one to attack and move through the dangerous terrain. By the time each of them reached me, they were generally burned by the wall of flames they were moving through.

The second pudding that attacked tried a different tactic and grabbed me, enveloping me in it’s ooze. Luckily it was so badly damaged by this point that when I swung my flail to escape, it collapsed, dead. Deciding to heed the words of my liege, Khan, I retreated a step to force the next one to come further through the flames.

Unfortunately, it was still able to reach me and grabbed me as well. In this case, it was Learion, swinging his guisarme with fearsome skill, even though it was round the wrong way on purpose, and Oret, fists and feet flailing furiously that killed the creature and freed me.

The far end of the cave was blocked off by rusty iron bars, but a few good swings by Learion cleared our way and we tracked further inside. Following the natural passage, we stumbled upon a room hidden by a secret door where goods were stored and we liberated them. From there, Khan was able to spot (yet again) more secret doors. Choosing one almost at random, as we were directly below the tower, based on the musing of Imajica, we entered the prison cells.

The cell we arrived in was empty and unlocked, but across from us was one occupied cell. In it was a strong, older man, clearly having been left to suffer. As fortune would have it, we found Terrion Numesti, the father of the young woman (Kisandra Numesti) who had come seeking our help. Some of the equipment in the previous room was his, so we returned it to him and had Imajica teleport him back to his daughter.

We are just waiting on Imajica to return before we continue on our way.